The Lesser Kindness
by Zeitgeist84
Summary: It goes without saying that a witcher's life is one of thankless peril: brutal training, mutations, vagrancy, and all they get for it are insults and a few coins to tide them over to the next contract. Still, to be a witcher is to lead an fascinating life, and Harry tries to make the most of his. Heavy AU.
1. The Lesser Kindness, Part 1

**Summary** : A Witcher stops in a port town. Chaos ensues. A short story told in two parts.

* * *

1054, March  
30 miles from the fortress of Rozrog,  
Yaruga River

* * *

The road to Cintra had been a perilous one.

It had started well enough, having left the comfort of Toussaint, but once on the famed River Yaruga, the pilgrimage had taken a turn for the vexing. Horrors, spooks, and werewolves roamed the riverside, along with common corpse-eaters and drowners, digging up the dead and spreading disease. It was a fright for townsfolk, ealdormen, and mayors alike, terrorized as they were by these beasts of burden.

But for a Witcher, it was as though gold fell from the sky.

A small wonder, too. The life of a Witcher was one deeply unfulfilling to most: it was a life spent traveling from one town to the next; it was a life spent sleeping under the stars; and, most of all, it was a life spent ever without gold to spend. So, a few spooks to slay and a bit of extra pocket change went a long way. Still, it prolonged the process of reaching proper civilisation, and so, the journey remained more memorable for its annoyances than its opportunities.

That being said, golden eyes, cat-like and glowing, scanned the shoreline, from underneath the hood of a cloak, for some of those suddenly not-so-rare opportunities. A gauntleted hand fiddled with a curio hanging from a chain. It was a medallion, made of the finest steel, carved into the roaring visage of a bear. It looked innocent enough, but that bear was far more than just a medallion around someone's neck, it was a warning: _Don't come near; here death rests with two swords upon his back_.

Perhaps that's why the sailors let him be, unimpeded with his own small corner on the deck of the ship.

The witcher had long since become used to the whispers, and slammed doors, and sneers. Loneliness no longer affected him, as it did when he was young and green. And though he was still considered young by the his very long-lived mentors, the hatred was one thing that all men of his ilk came to terms with very quickly.

Besides, few would come to speak, regardless, given the torrid weather.

It had rained since the ship has cast off from Dillengen some three days earlier, and the captain was diligent in his caution. They went at a snail's pace, and the Witcher deemed it would be some time before he reached Cintra.

"Oi, Master Witcher!" someone said, surprising the cloaked man. The Witcher turned, and found a scallywag of a sailor, dressed in strips and rags, staring him down. He didn't reply, and instead waited for the deckhand to speak:

"You ought to go below decks," he said, with surprising care for a man who looked as though he went through his entire life sucking on a lemon. "Out in the rain is no place to be, Witcher or no."

Those cat-like eyes fell upon the sailor, and softened some. "Thank you for the offer, but I'll be fine."

The sailor stood, fat droplets of rain spattering his face. "I-I know that most of me mates don't like youse," he said quietly, "but a Witcher once saved me mam from a werewolf. Didn't even ask for coin."

"He was a poor witcher, then. We don't kill monsters for free."

"Hah! Maybe so, but he was a decent man. Not at all like the books say. I know you lot aren't like the books say."

"Thanks," the cloaked man grunted.

A silence fell over the two again, and just to hear some sound beside the rain, the sailor spoke once more. "What are you waiting for?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You're looking for something, like you're waiting."

The Witcher nodded and held out his hand, palm facing upward. In it was that bear-shaped medallion. The silver vibrated furiously, looking for all the world as though an actual bear was rearing itself up for attack.

"You know what this means, I assume?" the cloaked man asked.

Swallowing, the sailor nodded.

"Good," said the witcher, "When we make port, tell the captain you shouldn't stay long. Stay only the time it takes for you to restock, and then go toward Cintra as fast as you can."

"Aye, and you? What of you?"

"I'll be getting off at the next town. Looks like there's work for me, yet."

* * *

 **THE LESSER KINDNESS**

* * *

Rohg was a quaint little port town steeped at the banks of the Yaruga. Like most riverside hamlets, it was a muddy morass of huts and ramshackle bungalows, held together by a series of rickety docks that could only be called a port by the most simpering of flatterers. To most, the villagers were a kind, friendly people, welcoming of outsiders and especially welcoming of trade. A Witcher, however, was not 'most', as the monster hunter was quickly reminded only a few moments after leaving the relative safety of the corvette.

It had stopped raining in the interval since his conversation with the sailor and the cloaked man no longer saw a need to be cloaked as he stepped down the wooden planks to the rickety docks. He threw back the hood of the cloak and ran a hand through unruly black hair, brushing back the fringe to reveal a scar.

The scar was an interesting one, not that scars were all that novel to a man like him; he had more scars on his face than he knew what to do with: two over an eye, one across the nose, another down over the lips, which ignored the mention of the innumerable ones along his chest and arms. But the one across his forehead, a curious scar in the shape of a thunderbolt, was the most interesting of all. He had received all his other scars as trouble from his profession, or the training beforehand. The one across the eye was given to him by a particularly angry cockatrice, the one across the nose from a common cutpurse, and the one on the mouth from a particular intensive day of training with sharpened blades back at Kaer Almhult. But the thunderbolt, the thunderbolt had been branded on him for as long as he could remember.

Some even said he was born with it.

He watched as sailors stepped off the boat and peasants barraged them in hopes that a merchant schooner had come by. Unwilling to wait to be crushed, he made his way through the crowd and quickly escaped the throng, though another problem soon came after:

"Another one!?" someone muttered under their breath in a smaller coterie ringing the larger group. "Have we become a haven for _mutants_ , then?"

"Shut yer gob, Gerd, we're in dire straits as it is!" another man, a more sensible one, whispered fearfully.

"Oh, you're such a bleedin' pantywaist," the first man growled, and then addressed the Witcher directly, stomping up to him. "Oi! Mutant! We've already one of your kind here, we don't bloody well need _another_!"

The witcher ignored his insult. "One of _my_ kind?" he asked instead.

"Yes! Mutant! Witchman! One _your_ lot."

The Witcher stared back, unfazed. "And where is he?"

"Negotiating with the ealdorman, robbing us honest folk of our hard-earned gold! What else do you lot do?"

"Negotiating for what?" asked the witcher, and the man opened his mouth to hurl out more abuse, but his friend, the sensible one, used his sensible senses to sense that the 'mutant' would not tolerate much another insult:

"To hunt down Harbreg!" he interrupted, before his friend said something that would cause him to lose his tongue.

"Harbreg? Is that a person? Witchers don't hunt men."

"No, Master Witcher, he ain't no man. The Harbreg's a forest spirit. An angry one, at that!"

"Tell me where your ealdorman lives. I wish to speak with him."

"Erm... uh, ahm, he's in the big house in the centre of the village. Exterior painted green. You'd have to be blind to miss it!"

The witcher grunted his thanks, and left the two men to grumble at each other. He promptly put his cloak back on; there was no need to draw more attention to himself than he already had. So he kept to himself and traveled down the main street, refraining from bemoaning the state of his boots and breeches; the hard-packed dirt of the road had long since turned to a muddy stew that splashed up with even the smallest step forward. Nevertheless, he trudged forward.

On the trek, he passed a butcher's house, judging by the drying cuts of meat, covered from the unpredictable elements by a large, sturdy tarp. On the other side of the road was a herbalist's hut, and further still were the thatch-roof houses of the other peasantry. He spotted a seamstress's home, a general store, and a small blacksmith's forge all within a hundred paces of each other.

As the witcher carefully traversed the small roadways, he spied a great many things about this place and its people. He passed a brother and sister arguing over chores at one hut, a woman weeping softly over something while her husband held her at another, and an elderly man patching a leaky roof at still another house. Some veterans of one of the wars the Northerners often got into snickered at the cloaked man who wore two swords on his back, of all places, but the witcher paid them little mind.

When he was young and brazen, he would have thrown off his cloak and strutted about the village, earning fearful glances, surprised gawking, and baleful glares alike. The witcher had grown wiser with time, and knew now to keep his hood up; then no one paid him any more attention than a mild chuckle.

And just so, he continued onward to the heart of the village, which was a small roundabout of a village square, ringed by several modestly-sized homes, the carts of a few fish peddlers and trinket merchants, and an inn. A scaffold with a hangman's noose stood proudly in the its centre, like some deranged monument.

Directly behind the scaffold was the house the witcher had been looking for, a little, green bungalow the mutant smiled at. It was a quaint thing that the villagers thought the ealdorman's house was big; he had seen peasants own larger homes from Beauclair to Novigrad. But he hadn't come to disparage the size of a man's home, he'd come for work.

And so the cloaked man passed by the small crowds, formed by shoppers, backwater socialites, and gawkers alike, to that 'big house' in the village centre. Even before he knocked on the door, he heard it.

A conversation. About monsters. One scrambled to describe a great big beast that didn't actually exist, and the other spoke sceptically, with sound of someone learned about monsters.

The first witcher was still in the house, then.

 _Mustn't forget manners,_ thought the mutant dully as he knocked on the door. There was a flurry of movement inside, and very soon the door was opened by a comely young lass. She looked up with luminous green eyes, observing the cloaked man; those eyes of hers widened when she saw his own:

"Another one?" she murmured, to herself, at first. There was another long moment where the two stared at each other, until the witcher pulled back his hood and confirmed who he was. She took in his face, but looked down until she found the vibrating bear's medallion, roaring at her from his chest. At once, the girl seemed to come back to herself and sprinted into the next room. "There's another one, father! Outside! It's another Witcher."

"Another one? Here? What a surprise," said another voice, deeper.

"Did you see his medallion?" a third voice interrupted. There was his witcher. He didn't recognize the voice, so he couldn't have been another of the Bear School. Given the area they were in, he could easily be from the Cat, Griffin, or Wolf school.

"Uh-huh."

"Well, don't hold back," said the other witcher, voice filled with good cheer, "I'm dying to hear it."

This had gone on too long; it was time for the drifter to introduce himself. Stepping through the threshold of the house, he crossed into the modest sitting room and found himself staring at three people: the girl he had already met; next to her was a middle-aged man with the same brown hair and green eyes as her; but it was the last that interested him most:

Shock red hair spilled out over pale skin, a scant few freckles ran over his nose, and his golden eyes glowed with the proof that he, too, had undergone the mutations.

"Bear school." said the first witcher. He would have asked what school the other witcher hailed from, but one could already tell from his armor: the overly-stylish leather jackets and breeches were practically a Wolf School calling card.

"Bear school? Ah, should've known from the armour. You're Skelligan, then?"

Harmless, frivolous information. He could share. "No. Temerian, I s'pose. Though I've lived in Skellige for a very long time."

"Ha!" laughed the other witcher, "Redanian, myself. Ron," he finished, extending out his hand.

"Harry," he replied, taking the other witcher's hand and shaking it. "Good to meet you."

"You know this doesn't change anything," said the third man, the one who must have been the ealdorman. "We've already agreed on a price, and I'm no' increasing it for 'nother Witcher."

Ron winked at the man and a ran a hand through his carrot-coloured hair, the picture of ease. "Don't worry about it, we'll get this all settled up at the inn, won't we... Harry?" he said, and clapped his compatriot's shoulder robustly.

Harry raised an eyebrow at the man, and made to swat at his hand, but before he could, the ealdorman let out an exasperated grunt: "Fine!" he threw his hands up. "I'm sick o'explainin' things to ye' anyways." he whirled on his toes and stalked out from the room, leaving a confused Harry and a thoroughly amused Ron.

Asha, the girl who had let Harry in, blushed in embarrassment. "I apologise, Master Witcher," she said to Harry, "you must forgive my father. He's... a bit _old-fashioned_. You know how old folk are."

"Only too well," replied Harry.

"Would either of you care for a drink? I can tell you anything my father might have forgotten."

"No, but thank you, darling," said Ron roguishly, "we'll be heading to the inn for a drink." he finished, and waved Harry over with an expectant look.

Harry sighed, _I always get the pushy ones_. He followed behind the Wolf School witcher back out into the soaked world.

"Damn," murmured Ron. "I hate rain. That's one of the great things about Kaer Morhen: hardly ever rains."

"It always rains at Kaer Almhult," Harry replied, "I guess I'm used to it."

"That explains a lot about you Bear folk. Dourest bunch I've ever had the fortune to meet."

"You should meet a member of the Cat School."

"Touché," Ron said pithily, as they crossed the square together, unmindful of the stares and whispers that followed them to the inn. The inn, if it could be called that, was a dirty, grimy watering hole with few beds, bad food, and barrels of pale yellow pish they claimed was faro straight from Cintra.

"Nice place," commented Harry drily as they sat.

Ron ignored him. "Innkeep!" he shouted to a fat, jolly man at the beer taps, whose rosebud cheeks turned chalk white at the sight of the two witchers. Coming closer, he demurred, wringing his hands together nervously as he spoke:

"Masters, what can I get for you?"

"Roast mutton with onions. And whatever beer you've on tap. And you, Harry?"

"Sauerkraut stew with beef. Water will be fine," Harry replied quickly.

"Aye, masters, aye, I'll get right away on it," he bowed low, so low that his large belly nearly kissed the ground.

"Polite," said Harry, as the man scurried away.

"He should be; he's heard what an angry witcher can do to his beloved inn."

Harry raised an eyebrow, but refrained from responding to it; he probably would have done the same in the redhead's stead, and it wasn't his place to chide.

Evidently, Ron didn't agree. "Sauerkraut stew and water? A modest meal, don't you think?" the redhead asked with a careless smile.

Harry chose to ignore Ron's jab. "So. Why am I here?"

"You're here because I need another witcher to talk to about this 'Harbreg' of theirs."

"What? You think it's a ruse?" Harry brought a hand to his jittering medallion; it was certainly no ruse.

The red-headed Wolf School witcher noticed as well, and frowned. "You feel it, too? So then we both agree it's real."

"But?"

"The monster they're describing. I've never heard of it," said Ron, folding his arms on the face of the heavy wooden table.

"Never?" asked Harry; he remembered hearing the description of the monster outside the ealdorman's house. Ron was right, vibrating medallion or not, the monster they were talking about was non-existent.

"There's nothing like it. Believe me, I know. I've the bestiary memorised like the back of my hand, Vesemir made sure of that."

"Vesemir?"

"One of the senior Witchers at our school," said Ron, "nice bloke, but boy is he a slave driver."

"How did they describe it again?"

"Like a bear, but with a lion's head, ram horns, and ox legs... it's all a load of ploughing bollocks."

"So?" shrugged Harry. "It wouldn't be the first time a client's exaggerated the monster they saw. I once did a contract near Vengerberg, and this miller was convinced his boy was attacked by a werewolf. 'Huge and fierce it were!'," he continued, mocking the boy's accent, "I was a bit suspicious from the start; the kid had hardly a scratch on him and apparently managed to outrun a werewolf," he stopped to chuckle at the thought, "turned out I was right: our huge and fierce werewolf was just a lost dog from a nearby village. Damned docile thing, too. Apparently the runt kept throwing rocks at got bit him when it had finally had enough. Poor kid was probably lying to save face."

Ron looked amused. "What did you do?"

"Assumed the dog was from the village next over. So I brought the dog there and it immediately scampered back to its owner. Then I went back into the woods, found a wolf and took its pelt, then got the reward."

"And the boy didn't say anything?" the wolf school witcher asked, incredulous.

"What would he say, 'I didn't get attacked by a werewolf'? Admit he wasted the ealdorman's time, as well as his father's and my own?"

The redhead smiled at that, and made to reply, but their quiet conversation was broken by an intruder come to the table. A very fetching bar wench, with a lovely, slim face and eyes that shone like sapphires, even in the dim light of the tavern, came to them with two oversized mugs. One was filled with fresh, life-giving water, and the other a noxious-smelling, vile sort of beer, poorly brewed and poorly prepared, though Harry supposed the ample bosom served alongside almost made up for it.

Thankfully, however, Ron was the one that had opted for the beer, and so, while Harry contentedly sipped at his drink, the other witcher observed his own as if it were poison, and eventually pushed it aside with a scrunched face and a disdainful sniff:

"I had been itching for a pint of proper Cintran Faro," he moaned piteously, "this looks worse than the slop I had in Vizima!"

Harry chuckled softly. "Vizima? Beer? You poor man."

Ron laughed. It wasn't altogether unpleasant sound, a quick, severe, barking noise, but it served to remind Harry that he was more like the medallion around his neck than he looked. "I am, indeed. That's the Path, isn't it? Always with no more than hundred coins of whatever currency in whatever kingdom. Even this bloody contract will only give me a hundred gold ducats, fifty of which I'll have to share with you."

Harry, too, laughed. "Backbreaking training, The Trial of the Grasses, numerous mutations, infertility..."

"...and for all that, a bloody fifty ducats," commiserated the red-haired witcher.

"That is," said Harry, "if we even survive long enough for that; most of the other witchers my age died half a year after leaving Kaer Almhult, dead in a swamp from their first fiend or chort."

"Or worse still, a band of nekkers or an exploding rotfiend..." Ron sighed, "poor Terry. Horrible way to go."

A comfortable silence fell between the two, just as the drunken braying of a pig-farmer about a Redanian milkmaid's breasts filled up the small tavern. A load of other men and boys clapped along to the rhythm; the Witchers watched and smiled, and Ron even joined in on the clapping, though mercifully few paid little attention to them.

"We need to speak with Jonas, the butcher, after we eat," said the redhead after the revelry ceased. "Given what I heard from the ealdorman, I don't suspect that he'll be of much use, but I hold out hope for a small wonder."

"An eternal optimist, then," Harry commented slyly, raising up his drink, intending to clink it against Ron's own. The unwary redhead complied and they both took a very long swig of their respective drinks; Harry smacked his lips in content and laughed when the other witcher gagged on his own.

"That..." Ron sputtered, "that was unkind."

Harry shrugged once more, a mischievous smile playing at his lips.

* * *

Once Harry had eaten his meager meal and Ron his curiously sumptuous one, for being a witcher on a strict budget, they headed out into the swell and muck, sloshing their way through the streets. A gaggle of boys played in a large, muddy puddle, while some girls sat together, not far off and unmindful of the rain, and sang an unnerving ditty about wishes and debts.

The kids stopped playing once the viper-eyed hunters passed them by; some cowered, but others, as brash children were wont to do, puffed out their chests and began following at a distance. Harry almost smiled; they truly thought they were being sneaky.

"What's with the runts?" Ron asked, more to himself than to Harry. "Do we look a pair of pipers?"

"Ah, let them follow. I half suspect they'll tire themselves out when they find us having a terribly exciting chat with the butcher," replied Harry, adjusting the strap of his steel sword, a well-made, curved sabre he had received from a Zerrikanian merchant visiting Toussaint some months ago.

Ron laughed. "Such a bore; if I were one of them, I wouldn't care unless I saw a witcher literally eat the butcher."

"Death by gross irony, it would be enough to satisfy me," Harry said.

But, before the children could even begin their tail, they were caught by a pair of eagle-eyed seamstresses not but a few feet away before they could get out of sight. Harry and Ron both chuckled a bit at the verbal bollocking they received, and then continued on their way up the path.

Eventually they came by the hut that Harry had passed on his way into the town from the docks, the one with carcasses all drying under a coarsely-spun tarp. Ron turned to him:

"Should I take point, or would you rather?"

"I know next to nothing about this contract, aside from the fact that this monster is called 'Harbreg'. I'm more than willing to watch you work."

"Ah, the Bear School," bemoaned Ron with a small grin, "as lazy as your namesake."

Harry nodded, unfazed by the jab. "Go on, then."

Shooting his companion a dirty look, the Wolf School witcher turned on heel and marched right through the quagmire to the door. With three sharp raps, he waited, folding his arms crossed, looking every bit the surly, mutated monster hunter. But he only had to wait a moment, for the door nearly immediately opened, as if the two had been expected. A bearded man with black hair, not unlike Harry himself, stood in the relative warmth of his hut and stared at Ron, then to Harry, and finally back to Ron once more:

"Stonemen?" he murmured quietly to himself.

Harry sighed, yet another strange epithet for his caste, but he did not rise to the bait.

Ron however, saw differently. "Yes, yes, Stonemen. Witchers. Freaks. Mutated on by mages until we have a murderer's skill and a heart of stone. As it happens, also the men here to hunt down Harbreg."

Jonas apparently was a discerning man, for he seemed to realise that he had offended a witcher. And, being a discerning man who had read much about witchers, he knew insulting one was a very dangerous thing to do:

"Oi, Master Witcher, I didn't mean none by it."

Ron raised a brow. "I'm sure you didn't," he said, and an awkward silence fell between the two. "Well?" asked Ron impatiently, after a short time. "Are you going to let us in, or not?"

The butcher jumped. "Oh! Aye, Masters, aye. Come on in!"

He waved them through with a manic expression, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of the two monster hunters in his home. Usually it was rather obvious, but with the butcher, Harry couldn't discern if his behaviour was due to fear, malice, or just plain stupidity.

The hut was a small thing, but quite cosy when coming out of the early spring ring. A fire roared to the side in a modestly sized fireplace; Harry's eyes drifted from it to the kitchen table, where a boy sat and stared with open mouth at the two visitors. Movement came from the side, and from an oblique corner rushed in a matronly woman, who scooped up the gawping boy, and left nearly as quickly as she came.

Harry tried to ignore it, but he Ron cross his arms and his brows furrow at the scene. Eventually, the redhead, too, shook himself from his daze and turned back to the butcher:

"Your name is Jonas?" Harry asked first.

"Aye," replied the man.

"The butcher?" Ron added for good measure, though neither of the two really needed the confirmation.

Jonas's chest seemed to puff out at the mention of his trade. "Aye," he said again, "been a butcher all me life. So was me da', and me da's da', and his da's da before that." he finished proudly, before he stopped and looked at the two curiously.

"Have I something on my face?" Ron asked, brows sloping low once more.

"I was just wondering about you. What about you lot? How does one become a witcher?"

Both witchers were taken aback by the question, and the sincerity in his tone. After all, Harry surmised, it wasn't every day that someone stooped to ask a lowly witcher his story. Ron, as Harry began to sense was typical of him, covered his surprise in a mask of indifferent humour:

"My father, apparently, had trouble with an alghoul that had taken up residence in our cellar," Ron replied. "A witcher stopped by, killed it, and invoked the Law of Surprise. So here I am, a witcher, because of an alghoul."

"Great Melitele, what rotten luck!" exclaimed the butcher, sounding genuinely sympathetic. "What about you, black-hair?" he asked, pointing at Harry.

"My story's not all that interesting. An unlucky orphan, as it were," Harry said evasively; Ron gave him a sideways look, though Jonas didn't seem particularly offended:

"Oh, I see," said the peasant, "but I reckon you lot haven't come here for a small talk. You want to know what I know about Harbreg."

Both witchers nodded.

Jonas sighed. "I can't tell ye' much, Masters, 'twere dark when I saw the beast, and it was but a glance at a passin' shadow mores like, than a proper clean look. But from what saw'r, it were huge! Teeth nearly big as me own 'ead!"

"Where did you see it? When?" Harry asked.

"In the forest, some weeks ago. It was soon after them girls began disappearing."

"Right," said Ron, "the ealdorman mentioned something about children disappearing at night."

Jonas snorted. "Hardly children; they was all fourteen or thereabouts. Practically marriageable, innit?"

"Sure," Ron continued, dismissive, "tell us what you know about the disappearances."

"Not much, masters. Don't have a daughter meself, and the boy is barely old enough to hold a cleaver, let alone sire a bairn of his own. But, what I 'eard is that the girls get up in the middle of the night, calm as you like. But there still asleep-like, eh? I dunno how else to describe it, really."

"Like, sleep-walking?" Harry supplied.

"Possessed by demons, mores like," answered the butcher with a shiver, "they leave their homes, quiet as mice, and dance their way to the forest."

"The forest," said Ron. "You're sure about this."

Jonas shrugged, and ran a hand through his bristly black beard, the picture of bemusement. "'M not sure about nothing, Master Witcher. As I said, it's only things I been hearin'. But I been hearin' exactly so: the girls leave and go into the forest, and are never heard from again."

"Big, horned, possibly capable of luring victims," Harry muttered in an aside to Ron. "Chorts can be capable of hypnosis. It'd explain the size of what the butcher saw."

"But why girls? And adolescent girls, specifically? Don't think chorts much care who or what they eat." Ron returned.

"Good question," said Harry. "What happened next?" he asked, turning back to the butcher.

"Well, some of the stronger, strapping lads decided they'd go into the forest to look for the missing girls..." he trailed off.

"And now they've gone missing, too?"

"Aye," Jonas returned sadly.

Ron slapped a thigh and looked up with a thoughtful expression, as though he had come to some resolution: "Well, that settles it, then!"

"Settles what?" asked Harry.

"We ought to go to the forest!"

* * *

It was late afternoon when the two witchers entered the forest, which was a mire of a tall, sturdy trees, bubbling brooks, and an interminable, unnatural fog that clung to everything. No birds sang, and no animals trotted about; the whistling of the wind and the rushing of water were the only sounds that remained. But, more than that, something itched at the senses, speaking through the primal language of danger and fear. Instinctively, both men were immediately on guard. Harry's medallion vibrated fiercely as his companion cut through the silence:

"I've already a bad feeling about this place," Ron said, raising a cautious hand up to the handle of his sword.

"Yeah," said Harry, "something's not right here."

Swords came out from their scabbards; Harry gripped his Zerrikanian steel sabre and Ron his silver bastard-sword, forged by the best blacksmith at Kaer Morhen. It was a simple enough strategy; if they were attacked by men, Harry would deal with them, and if they were attacked by monsters, Ron would step forward.

Together, they slipped deeper into the murky wood.

* * *

 _To be continued in Part 2..._

* * *

 **Author's Note** : That's a wrap on Part 1. Part 2 will take the contract to its conclusion. This fic was essentially inspired by an /r/writingprompts thread a few months ago, as well as an /r/HPfanfiction prompt for more HP/Witcher crossovers. Hopefully, I've done you fans of both fandoms proud, so far. I'm not sure whether I'll continue onward with more chapters after the next, but I suppose I'll let the audience decide. If it seems people want more, I'll put it on the burner with my other fics; if not, then no harm no foul, after Part 2 I'll mark this complete and go back to my other fics.

 **Chapter Notes:**

Kaer Almhult: Shown only in Wild Hunt, Kaer Almhult was a castle constructed for Skelligan kings, but fell into disuse because kings preferred to stay on their particular island, and was eventually converted into a prison with skycells. It's the place with the Tyrion easter egg, as well as the Cthulhu one. So, that's the "canon" version of what Kaer Almhult was, but it's just such a gorgeous ruined stronghold that I had to include it in the story somehow, and that was as the Bear School headquarters.

Witcher Schools: I didn't want to make our protagonist a complete Geralt stand-in, so Harry is a part of the Bear School over the Wolf School. Though it also has a bit to do with the armour; while I like the Wolf School armour set in TW3, I adore the wandering ronin look of the earlier tier bear school armour sets as well.

Timeline and Characters:This takes place long before the games and the book series, mainly to avoid constantly tripping over characters and events from Sapkowski's canon. There are a few around, such as Vesemir, Philippa, and Francesca Findabair, but aside from that, most characters from Witcher canon haven't even been born yet.

Cintra: Since I'm aware that some of those reading this fic may have only played the games and not read the books, you might be somewhat unfamiliar with where Cintra is. Cintra is one of the southernmost of the Northern Kingdoms and was conquered during the First Nilfgaard-Nordling war, in one of the most decisive and brutal battles of the war, which is colloquially referred to as the "Slaughter of Cintra". Since Geralt sticks to the Northern Kingdoms in each of games, we don't ever see Cintra, but it is just south of the Brokilon Forest, where Dryads like Morenn (who Geralt meets in The Witcher 1) are from.

Thanks for reading!  
Geist.


	2. TLK Part 2

**Summary** : A Witcher stops in a port town. Chaos ensues. A short story told in two (now three) parts.

* * *

THE LESSER KINDNESS

Part 2

* * *

I

* * *

The forest shuddered awake, and a deep, unnerving groan reverberated through the trees. All at once, the dead wood gained some life, as a deer burst through a canopy of bushes up ahead, nipped at the heel by a pack of five wolves. Harry and Ron observed as the wolves gave chase over dirt, and fallen branches, and roots of trees until the rowdy crowd came to the silent brook. It was here where they made their move; the closest wolf lunged through the lazy stream and grasped onto the leg of the deer, and the canine behind him rushed to the side as the poor beast fell. Both witchers heard a sickening crack as a femur broke, and the overlapping wolf bared sharp teeth before snapping them at the throat.

The unfortunate buck fought back with an anemic struggle, the crest of its branching horns swiping weakly at the fiendish crew that surrounded him, but all danced away like fire in the wind. The only thing the stag bought for itself was a harder, tighter grip on its throat, and its lifeblood ebbed away into its hunter's mouth, until the struggle became the quick spasms of one's death-throes. Soon, the hunt was capped off by a series of long, grieving howls.

Harry couldn't help but smile thinly; perhaps this was their way of honouring their fallen prey. He looked to Ron, who also grinned back. They had been much too jumpy. Still, neither sheathed his respective sword, exercising the utmost caution. Soon, it was rewarded.

The wind whistled through the trees, and the branches bent backward and forward, cracking and creaking as an oppressive force seemed to settle upon the canines. At once, their movements lost their fluidity, and they trotted about herky-jerky, all in a manic hurly-burly.

"That's odd," murmured the other witcher quietly, "does that remind you of anything?"

Harry nodded. "Axii," he grunted.

It indeed looked as though their actions were no longer their own. A wolf's ear pricked, and its neck turned from its downed prey, in the same, jerky fashion, to face the two witchers and settled on its haunches. Harry felt distinctly as though two sets of eyes were watching him at once.

"Three witchers in the same area at the same time? Two is pushing it, three is not a coincidence," Ron said.

The wolf bent low, grasped the stag by the throat once more, and, still gazing upon the two intruders, dragged the corpse back into the cover of the bushes. Harry shook his head:

"I don't believe in coincidences," he said shortly, fingers once again curled round the jittering bear medallion, "whatever's going on here, we're being watched. And I doubt the watcher's friendly."

"A monster, then. Any ideas what kind?"

"Not yet, but we're bound to find some clues the further we go into the forest."

"After you."

The two witchers melted into their roles seamlessly, with Harry once more taking point, and Ron keeping a weather eye out for any dangers lurking among the trees. The crossed over the stream as the Wolf School witcher wrinkled his nose at the mess of blood the wolves had left:

"Hm," he said, "pleasant. Should we follow their tracks?"

"Best lead we've got," replied Harry, squinting at the ground. "Found them. Light prints but the carcass should be easy enough to follow."

Ron, too, found them quickly. "Yeah, not a particularly difficult track."

Blood led to blood, track-to-track; the witchers crept by with cautious pace around the bushes, through trees, up a natural formation of dirt and stone, and into a glade. The rain had returned during their long sojourn through the forest, but neither of the two noticed, for they were too occupied by their noses. Up ahead, strange formations of gnarled, twisted wood sprouted up from the ground, bearing no fruit or leaves, but the acrid scent of rotting flesh.

They advanced forward, taking note of formation after formation.

"There must be at least twenty here, if my count's correct," Ron said.

"I've seen these before," said Harry. "If I'm right, we ought to be very careful."

The Wolf School Witcher's eyes widened. "You don't think it's-"

"I do."

Ron's mouth clamped shut and remained that way until they reached the first mass of roots and branches. Entwined within them was a week-old corpse, squashed and mangled. around the roots were a few broken plates of stone, covered in dried, nearly black blood.

Harry wrinkled his nose. "Hm. Looks like a teenage boy. Crushed by the roots which seemed to grow out of the ground, despite..."

Ron stomped the ground and was greeted with the sound of boot scraping rock. "Despite the fact that this patch of ground is mostly rock and gravel. A poor place for plants to grow."

Both witchers grimaced, their fears confirmed:

"Leshen," said Harry.

Ron nodded somberly. "Leshen."

They walked slowly through the killing field, inspecting several more of the makeshift wooden sepulchers, and found more dead men ensconced within them. Harry clucked his tongue:

"Well, that explains what happened to all the men who went out looking for the girls."

"Still doesn't explain what became of the lasses, however," replied Ron.

"True enough."

"It looks like the trail of bodies lead back into the forest," Ron pointed out the opposite end of the glade, where the murky wood began once more.

Harry nodded resolutely. "Good. We need to look for any totems. Whether it's Harbreg or not, a leshen's a leshen, and it seems to be killing the lads who go looking for the missing girls. And if it's got a totem, then we need to be thorough in making sure it will never come back."

"No complaints here," replied Ron.

The two made their way to the edge of the glade, where the darkness of the wood swallowed them whole once more.

* * *

II.

* * *

The attack was sudden and merciless.

It had come soon after the two found a totem pole, crudely fashioned out of stone, wood, and human bones, centred in a tiny mound of dirt in a shallow pond near the forest's edge.

It had been a sign that the leshen in these woods was very old, and very dangerous, but before either witcher could voice anything to one another, a song, high and breathy, came whistling down the trees, and a wind picked up.

The witchers, even with their enhanced senses, barely dodged the cracking and groaning of wood rushing toward the two, eventually culminating in roots bursting out from the ground and closing into those same gnarled tombs Harry and Ron had passed by earlier.

Both dove to ground, but were up in an instant, facing their enemy. Large and horned, the silhouette of a deer attached to a hulking, giant of a man shambled toward them, as a sibilant creaking noise emanated from its snout.

A quick tap upwards of a scabbard and Harry's steel sabre was sheathed, soon replaced by the more commonplace design of his silver sword. He looked to the other witcher, who nodded back, and then they moved.

It's said that a watching a witcher use a blade is about the closest thing to art that an instrument of butchery can allow, and such was the case when Harry and Ron grasped the tools of their bloody trade. Despite having met only earlier that day, and hailing from different witcher schools entirely, the Bear and the Wolf blade-danced their way to their grotesque quarry, all the while avoiding roots and crows summoned by the leshen, with the sort of grace and understanding one might expect only two long-time comrades could share.

But Leshens were powerful monsters, usually ancient, and tied to the place they inhabited, often by means supernatural. By no means would it give up its home to two interlopers after a shared 100 ducat reward, not easily, at least.

The first clash came between Ron's sword and the leshen's beefy forearm; the blade cut through the wood like it would butter, until about halfway through, catching as it would in the trunk of a tree. Growling, the leshen observed Ron, who vainly tried to pull his blade from its arm, and shook him off as he would a fly. The wolf school witcher stumbled back, but the monster pressed its advantage, making to swipe at the vulnerable mutant, only to be rebuffed moments before rearing its arm back with a persistent jet of conjured fire searing its back.

Harry dispelled the sign of igni as the hulking beast faced him. He readied his blade, having used Ron's distraction to down several potions, not the least including a Blizzard Potion, which sped up his senses and increased reaction time.

He circled the beast, drawing its attention long enough for Ron to rejoin the fray. They came at the beast from either side, sweeping low to cut at the thinnest parts of the legs. The beast lunged and found itself grasping nothing but air, before it toppled over, legs severed from the rest of the body. Crashing to the ground, it thrashed and howled, whether in pain or pure rage, Harry couldn't tell, but the wail beat at his skull like peasant drums and reverberated as though someone had blown the battle horns at Kaer Trolde into his ears. Harry and Ron both stumbled back, taken aback at the sudden assault of noise, only looking up in time to see the leshen disappear into a puff of black smoke.

And in its place came the baying of wolves, rushing through the glade, back into the forest, and toward the two witchers.

Harry readied his sabre just in time for three hulking white wolves to come bursting into the clearing where the leshen had just disappeared, and unseamed the first from head to tail as it lunged for him. The other two saw their companion easily dispatched and halted their attack, instead waiting for the right moment to attack, by the edge of the trees. Their plan fell apart when one of the two wolves began trotting jerkily, head lolling to-and-fro, before perking up and falling upon the other wolf, each tearing at the other. Harry looked back to see Ron just finishing the sign for Axii. In the end, the canines were a quick clean-up for the two monster hunters.

"Ugh," Ron grunted, as he cleaned the blood off his steel bastard-sword, "the bastard got away."

"It's alright; we wouldn't have been able to kill him, anyway," replied Harry.

"What do you mean?"

"That leshen is old, powerful. Even if we had cut its head off, it would probably come back. Something that ancient is bound to have marked someone living in the settlement. And then..."

"And then, what?"

"Then there's the matter of the song. The one we heard right before the leshen attacked."

Ron blinked. "You heard it, too? Good. I was starting to think it was just my imagination."

"So, we've at least found out what Harbreg is. Perhaps it's time to go back and inform the ealdorman?" Harry suggested.

"May as well," agreed Ron, "there's nothing else we can do out here for now. Best head back to town and prepare for our next meeting."

* * *

"Your Harbreg is a leshen," deadpanned Harry as soon as they crossed the threshold of the ealdorman's home, "an especially ancient one."

Evening had come, and perhaps the ealdorman had been expecting better news after the two witchers' lengthy investigation:

"A leshy? Here?" he gasped.

"Yeah," answered Ron, "looks like it's been in the forest a while, too. It's the monster that's behind the disappearances of the lads who have gone into the forest looking for your missing girls."

"Found quite a few dead; the leshen's work for sure," said Harry.

"And the lasses?" asked the town leader, running a nervous hand through his obsidian hair. "What news of the lasses?"

"None yet," replied Harry.

"We haven't found anything about them. No prints, no bodies, no tracks. We've only found the boys," Ron elaborated, crossing his arms as they moved from the foyer to the modest sitting room.

"Ah, lads are lads; they knew what they was signing up for. But you've found _nothing_ on the girls?"

"Nothing at all."

"Why haven't you killed the beast, yet?" the ealdorman asked, looking and sounding more wearied than annoyed.

Ron looked to Harry, indicating for him to drop the news: "It can't be killed, not conventionally, at least," Harry obliged.

A pained expression briefly flitted across the ealdorman's face, as though he'd been hit with something hard. "What does that even mean?"

"We believe that your leshen has marked one of the people in this town, and that so long as that person lives here, the leshen will always regenerate any wound it sustains. Even if you were to kill it, it would reborn in a matter of days," explained the black-haired witcher.

The ealdorman looked troubled. "So, what? A mutant's to denounce one of our own and then I'm to execute them on your order? Do you truly believe that, even had I wanted that, the others would abide that?"

Harry shrugged.

"I don't think you need to kill anyone," said Ron. "Exile seems a greater kindness."

"Pah! Exile!" the town leader practically shouted with incredulity. He then visibly restrained himself, gripping the small kitchen table they sat at. "'Ave you found the person I must proclaim this nasty decree upon?"

"Not yet, we thought it best to inform you before looking for the marked one," said Ron.

"I see. Well, it's getting late. Most people have retired to their homes for the night. You'll have to begin your search tomorrow, after I decide what to do with the information you'll tell me. Asha!" he called. From the other room, a small bedroom, emerged the ealdorman's fair daughter, a book in hand:

"Yes, papa?" she asked.

"Fetch the witchers and I something to drink whilst we discuss matters, will you? The Red, if you please."

"Yes, papa," she answered demurely, set her book down, and walked to the trap door that would lead down to the larder. Presently, she returned with an old wineskin and emptied into a finely-made carafe that Harry would have thought out of the ealdorman's budget.

Asha made her way to where the men sat, offering each witcher a clay-baked cup and her father one of pewter. The ealdorman nodded at the carafe of dark red wine:

"Finest from Beauclair, my only bottle. But when else shall I drink it, but now? Go on, have some, before the open air ruins the taste." both witchers complied, to keep from offending their employer, if nothing else. The ealdorman spoke again: "Speak to me true: these leshys of yours... why can't you kill them? Why must I send a neighbour out into the wilderness at your word?"

Ron took a long gulp of his wine, not even bothering to savour it. "Leshens have bodies, big oak-mangled things, but they don't truly inhabit them."

"Huh?" responded the man intelligently. "What on earth does that mean?"

"It means that the leshen is actually a spirit, not a corporeal thing. In many ways it's like a wraith, or a phantom. The only way to truly kill it is to trap it inside a body being killed, without anywhere to escape to," said Harry. "So long as the leshen marks a person who lives, it cannot be killed."

"I see," said the ealdorman. "I also see why the marked one must die; I don't follow why I should exile this marked one."

"I can answer that," replied Ron, "the leshen is tied to this forest. That forest is its home. And I'm certain it's been there for a long time. Tell me, sir, people have gone missing venturing into those woods before, haven't they? Before the girls went missing, I mean."

"Aye, people have gone missing and died before, but we'd always reckoned they'd been set upon by wolves. Or perhaps hunted by them ladies of the woods."

"Ladies of the woods? Dryads, you mean?" Ron asked, and the ealdorman nodded.

Harry's brows furrowed. "Are we that close to the Brokilon Forest?"

"Not close, nay," replied the town leader, "but no' far, neither. Perhaps two days hard ride from here?" The Bear School witcher nodded at the man, and folded his arms together in contemplation, as his canine companion continued his explanation:

"Anyway. Since the leshen can only reside here, sending a marked individual away essentially stops its ability to regenerate, since it can no longer rebirth itself in its own territory. So, until it can mark its next victim, which is usually a slow process, the leshen is mortal."

"Ah. I see," murmured the ealdorman, looking troubled, "Well, I must retire. Think about this, some. When you two are finished, call for Asha, she will let you out."

* * *

III

* * *

Ron retired from the ealdorman's house first, citing a long overdue rest at the town brothel; Harry stayed behind for a time and spoke at length with the ealdorman's daughter about the town and its history, particularly concerning bandits and any attacks on the town, of which the girl had no real recollection. When he left, night had risen high and the rain had picked up once more.

Despite that he would end up all the wetter for it, Harry lollygagged his way back to the inn. The clouds clashed, flashed, and rumbled overhead, and seemingly no one remained on the muddy path through town but himself.

It soon became apparent, however, that he was not alone, for a merchant stood aways down the path, on its side, hawking his goods loudly and, as the witcher discovered by looking around, at no one. Resolving to ignore what must have either been the world's worst merchant or a lunatic, the witcher crossed to the other side of the road as he passed by. Perhaps he had hoped the man would simply ignore him, or that he would continue shouting into the wind, but such was not the case:

"You there, Master Witcher!" he called out in a baritone to Harry and beckoned the witcher over, "fancy a look?"

Harry surveyed the merchant, who wore cloak of black with hood shadowing most of his face, though he could make out a showman's smile upon the hawker's lips. Deciding a look at the man's wares was harmless, Harry turned his gaze toward the cart standing by the cloaked man, and blinked as he saw himself through a moistened glass, darkly:

"You are aware that these rust, right?" he asked.

The merchant nodded casually, as if he expected the witcher to ask that. "Yes, I'm well aware."

"You know rain causes rust, right?"

"Of that I am also well aware, Master Witcher. But I must ask you: are _you_ aware?"

Harry's dark brows furrowed. "Of what?"

"Of what manner of monster truly lurks in that wood? Is it merely a leshen? Or is it something lesser, something _greater_?"

Suddenly, this hawker no longer seemed as mad as he had before. There was madness still, to be sure, but it was now a controlled chaos: there was intelligence in his eyes, and menace in his smile. And that he knew it was a leshen in the forest, when Harry and Ron had told no one but the ealdorman and his daughter, was even more intriguing.

"And who are you?" the witcher asked, folding his arms.

"For now, I am merely a wanderer who has heard many a tale of the old times."

"And your name?"

"Nameless, I'm afraid" smiled the other man, "I renounced it when I took upon the life of an itinerant merchant, much like you did when that sorcerer dropped you off at Kaer Almhult as a babe."

Harry blinked quickly. How did this man know that? He opened his mouth to speak, but the merchant raised up a slender hand for quiet:

"Like I said, Master Witcher, I know many a tale. Including yours. But I'd rather discuss another one."

"And what other one do you have to tell me?" Harry asked, turning away and inspecting the road.

"A simple one. For as long as we can remember, men have branded their neighbours enemies, and have created lasting hatreds as a consequence. Some of those hatreds are as vicious and timeless as monsters themselves. Follow the flute, Master Witcher, and you'll find the girls."

"The flute? What are you talking-?" Harry turned back to the merchant, only to find rain, and mud, and the cold air. Whirling, he looked about in all directions, but the merchant had disappeared into the night.

Harry stood a while, then shook his head and laughed to himself. He was turning into a madman.

Sighing, the witcher turned back down the path and made his way back to the inn. Ron hadn't yet returned, likely still buried face-first in a whore's bosom, so Harry merely paid the innkeeper (who turned into a nervous wreck as the mutated swordsman approached) for a room, and collapsed on the straw bed moments after he entered the room.

That night, the witcher slept like the dead.

And in the morning, he was awoken by the light sound of feet just outside the door. Years of training and no small amount of paranoia had the witcher reaching for his blades, but as the door opened, the innkeeper waddled in, followed by a casual, bare-chested Ron. Harry suppressed a small grin; the wolf school witcher had likely gone to the innkeeper that way to scare him with the crisscross of scars that littered his chest and shoulders.

Judging by the simpering expression on the innkeeper's face, it had worked.

"Master Witcher, kind sir, your companion had told me you were in need of breakfast, and I, I came by to see what you'd like," he clapped his hands together in supplication, expression kindly and smiling, but the tone of his voice made it seem more like the man felt as though he were trapped in the lion's den with no escape. Harry took pity on the man:

"Cook's choice," he grunted quickly, "I'm not picky."

Quickly, for a man his size, the innkeeper hurried out of the room and fled down the hall, leaving the two witchers behind. Ron shuffled over to a roughly-constructed desk and plonked down upon the hard-backed chair that accompanied it:

"I see you're no stranger to a monster's claws, too," said the redhead, pointing at Harry's own scarred torso.

"Courtesy of the Basilisk of Ban Gleán," Harry said, indicating a long, thin scar from one end of his stomach to the other, "damn thing near disemboweled me."

Ron laughed. "Got a similar scrape on my back from a cockatrice some fifteen miles from Cidaris."

Harry pointed to a bite mark on his shoulder. "Bruxa in Nazair."

"Serial-murdering doppler," Ron said, indicating a ragged slash down the length of his right forearm. "But..."

"But what?"

"I'm more interested in the one above your heart. Whatever monster did that, got you good."

Harry reached to his chest, just above his heart, and felt the smooth scar tissue there. "It wasn't a monster that did it."

Ron looked up, interest piqued. "Really?"

"It was ten years ago, maybe. You remember the war?"

"Against the Rose of Shaerrawedd? It wasn't much of a war, from what I can recall."

Harry laughed dourly as he stood and made his way toward a small closet, and threw on a rough-hewn shirt. "Yes, more of a massacre, than anything. But the bloodshed was enough to destablise Redania just as I'd come to the Gustfields looking for work. I ended up picking up a contract from a minor nobleman and leader of a mercenary troupe named Radomir von Everec, to investigate the suspicious disappearances and deaths of young men and women in a small town a ways out from Oxenfurt."

"And so?"

"Inspected the bodies, realised quickly that it was a vampire. Alp, to be precise. Found her among the nonhuman quarter. At first she claimed to have no idea what I was talking about, but when I pressed her she admitted to having drank blood, but claimed to have killed no one. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt..." trailed off the Bear School witcher. "But, the evidence was stacked against her; in the end I had to," Harry made a chopping motion with his hands, "but somehow, the humans found out, and immediately assumed the nonhumans were sheltering the alp and coordinating attacks on the common folk. Came to the nonhuman quarter with pitchforks and torches, and a regiment of Death Eaters, as well."

Ron's expression turned ugly in an instant. "Death Eaters," he spat. "I remember them. Vestibor made a mockery of himself allying with those cutthroats against Elirena."

"Cutthroats, aye, and terribly cross with elves, too," said Harry. "They came rushing in and tried to smoke the elves from their shacks; von Everec and I were the only ones able to defend them. Five rushed me and four him, and while we dispatched them easy enough, a longbowman managed to get me with a broadhead dipped in poison. The moment I relieved him of his head, I began to feel the effects. In a matter of moments, I'd fallen on the ground, and the rabble from the village regained their bravado, throwing stones at us."

"Then what happened?"

"The elves sheltered us, but had no way of healing me. I'd have died had not a sorceress come through that town on her way from Aretuza to Novigrad, with her elven protege. Perhaps the elf heard the story and took pity, or perhaps the sorceress herself did; they were gone by the time I awoke, and was left only with names: Ilona Laux-Antille was the sorceress who saved me."

"And the elf?"

"Hermione."

"Strange name."

"Par the course for elves, isn't it?"

The pair of mutants chuckled lightly.

"Ah, but they're names," said Harry, "just names. Meaningless without faces to attach them to."

"Master Witchers! The innkeep called from across the hall, "your breakfast is ready! Do come out when you're ready."

"Aye," said Ron. "Names are meaningless, but you at least of some inkling of who to thank. That should be more than enough. Come, we'll eat then search for the marked one. They can't be far."

Harry nodded quickly to other witcher, who soon left him to finish dressing.

* * *

Author's Notes: I had originally planned for this to be a two-parter at just about 10,000 words total, but I think I underestimated how long it was actually going to be, especially with all the dialogue between our two witchers. So, there will be one additional chapter that will wrap up the Leshen contract, explain what the merchant meant by the flute and the girls, and continue to unravel the histories of our protagonists (we got a lot Harry in this chapter, and we'll get more Ron next).

Chapter Notes:

 **Elirena/Rose of Shaerrawedd:** Alternate names for Aelirenn, an elf-woman who led a fruitless uprising of elves against humans some two-hundred years before the witcher books. Yaevinn will mention her during the bank robbery in The Witcher 1.

 **Vestibor** : King of Redania, and father of Radovid II, King around approximately this time since the "Seven Years War" between Temeria and Redania is said to have occurred in the 11th century, and Vestibor was king during that era. Since Vestibor is King of Redania during this period, it can also be assumed that Goidemar is king of Temeria.

 **The Merchant:** I think I might have been too obvious with who he is, but if you're confused, and don't mind spoilers, go back and read exactly what the merchant was selling and it'll become pretty clear.

 **Ilona Laux-Antille:** Grandmother of Margarita, from the original series. If Ilona was anything like her granddaughter, I'd imagine her to be a bleeding heart enough to save one lowly witcher at the cusp of death, as she'd be (like Margarita) one of the select few magic users in the series who aren't completely self-serving. Which is why Rita will always be true best girl. Come at me, Triss/Yenfags.

 **Hermione the Elf:** Hermione is elven to parallel the muggleborn stigma she faces in HP canon. Most muggleborn characters in the series will be portrayed as elves (with a few notable exceptions), and even though it isn't mentioned explicitly, Harry is half-elf because of Lily. Though I'm just going to go with "mutations make him look more human".

 **Radomir von Everec:** Made-up ancestor to our favourite David Beckham doppelganger, Olgierd.

Thanks for reading,  
Geist.


	3. TLK, Final Part

**Summary** : A Witcher stops in a port town. Chaos ensues. A short story told in two (now three) parts.

* * *

THE LESSER KINDNESS

Part 3

* * *

I

* * *

When Harry stepped out, fully dressed in his travel-worn armour, he found the main room of the inn empty, but for one soul sitting at a table with a sumptuous feast laid out for him. As if sensing someone had intruded upon his meal, the stranger looked up, and smiled from beneath his cloak; he beckoned the witcher over and gave him leave to sit on the opposite bench.

"Well, hello, Master Witcher," the cloaked man said affably.

"Ah, the mirror merchant from last night," said Harry as he sat and scooted in close, "received any buyers as of yet?"

"Ha! No such luck, I'm afraid, though I thank you for your courtesy. Sadly, it seems none in this backwater have any desire to see their own hideous faces. I fear I shall soon move on to Cintra, where I'm bound to receive a few sales."

"It could also be that you were hawking your wares in the midst of hurricane."

"Hmm. Possibly, but I doubt it." The merchant shrugged casually and stabbed a slice of smoked sausage with a knife, before bringing it up and popping it in his mouth. He again beckoned the witcher to join him:

"I'm already waiting on food," declined Harry politely.

The merchant smiled knowingly. "That might take some time," he said it in a way that convinced the witcher that the wait would be very long indeed, though the innkeep had said their food was ready, "have a little of mine whilst we wait. I could use someone for diversion."

"As you wish," replied the black-haired witcher, who then picked up one of the discarded knives and cut himself a robust slice of bread, and a slice of the sausage the merchant had been enjoying earlier.

"I'd recommend the cheese as well," the other man said through a full mouth.

Harry took his recommendation to heart and spread some of the soft cheese, at the edge of the table, onto his slice of bread. The merchant lowered his hood and Harry was surprised by the face revealed. The merchant was neither ugly nor handsome, yet somewhere in between and characterised by stubble: his hair on his head was cut close, but not enough to be bald, and his chin had seen shaving some three days past. In a word, he was nondescript.

"Now that we've solved questions of animal nature," he said, indicating the food, "I must say, it's a funny thing."

"What is?"

"Time," answered the merchant, rubbing the nearly-bald crest of his head. "Not 200 years past, _we_ were the intruders on this continent: peasants were armed like lords and their knights to go out into the forest; brigades of men and even women and children would protect transports from one makeshift town to the next. This was a land of wyverns, kikimoras, vyppers, zeugls, vampires, _demons_... And men took it from them, one bloody mile at a time."

Harry nodded. He had heard stories from some of the older witchers; the world was violent and brutish still, but paled in comparison to the savagery that was the continent just a century ago.

"But then, men decided it was no longer up to them to protect themselves from these monsters. So they took children, had swordsmen teach them the way of the blade, stuffed them from vein to artery with mutagens, and then teach them a few parlour tricks with magic. Then they're sent out into the world, condemned to a life of base barbarism, killing that which all mankind should fight."

Harry swallowed his food, then fixed the merchant with a searching look. "And us witchers were born. I see you've a point to make, but I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at, merchant."

"All in due time, Master Witcher," replied the nondescript man. "You see, I don't condemn you for it, but the creation of witchers allowed for much of the basic brutality we see today."

"How so? As I'm aware, the world was far bloodier in the past."

"Yet mankind had an enemy that they could unite against: monsters, specters, the things that creep out of swamps and hide in mountain passes and go bump in the night. That they left their fate in your hands, allowed them to suddenly think themselves better than the world around them. And instead of remaining united against the monsters, they went on to lead wars against one another that fractured relationships and loosened the ties that bind."

The Witcher said nothing, he merely cut himself another slice of sausage, and continued listening:

"But that wasn't the worst part; the worst part was the introduction of _otherness_."

"Otherness?"

"Like I said, for a time, monsters were the 'others', and men had no time for wars or oppression. But then, the monsters became the domain of witchers, and men lost any real idea of how to deal with them, so they left for the greener pastures: elves, dwarves, halflings... all others. And you witchers, too, became _others_ not long after. Others are vile, others are _evil_. Others must be repressed and dealt with so the righteous common folk can live their lives in peace. Did you know, there was a time when The Valley of the Flowers were nothing but elven cities and meadows as far as the eye could see?"

"I do. And I also know men drove them from the edge of the world, from their valley, with pitchforks and fire. _I know_ , forest-dwelling elves are so fond of telling just us how brutish men are when they have us at the end of a notched longbow."

The merchant chuckled. "They are a pompous lot, aren't they? But is haughtiness deserving of death?"

"No, certainly not," replied the witcher academically, "but I'd imagine attacking transports and dealing death does. One turn deserves another, so to speak."

"But did we not do it first?"

Harry shrugged. "Do we receive justice by killing the children of the men who wronged us? When they attack, they waste their arrows and blades on common blood in out-of-the-way forest glades. They attack peasants and odd traveling merchant, not lords, and they attack them a hundred years too late. When they attack lords, they get crushed, so they content themselves with killing those who have done nothing wrong besides being _haughty_."

"Ah, Aelirenn, Aelirenn. Beauty and boldness and not an ounce of brains," said the merchant as he pushed the sausage to the side and set about a jam pastry. "But I must admit, I'm surprised to hear you say that. I thought you might be more sympathetic toward them."

"Being an 'other', as you say, doesn't extend my kindness to common bandits."

"Bandits? Are they not 'patriots', Master Witcher? Fighting a great evil done to them with acts of lesser evils?"

"Evil is evil, Master Mirror," said Harry, lightly mocking the merchant's way of addressing him.

"Master Mirror?" murmured the merchant. "I quite like that."

"You're welcome to it."

"Thank you. But, nay, Harry; evil is not simply evil. There's lesser and greater. And then there's _Evil_. And you'll know when you see it," the merchant puffed out his cheeks and exhaled deeply. "But, let's not philosophise. I simply find it surprising, still."

"What?"

"After all, it's hard to tell, as travel-worn, disheveled, and bearded as you are, but I sense the slightest tip of the auricle. Am I mistaken?"

Harry stilled. "No, you're not."

"Which one was it? Mother, or father?"

There was a pause, and Harry searched the merchant's eyes for any hint of deceit.

"Mother," he said at length, "I'm told she was a sorceress of some renown."

"My, Aen Seidhe _and_ a sorceress! And your father?"

"A Temerian Voivode. Again, of some renown, or so I'm told."

"Haha!" the merchant laughed gaily. "A Temerian noble, an elven sorceress. An improbable coupling, leads to an improbable birth, leads to an even more improbable child: one who would grow up to be a witcher."

"I'm aware of the unlikelihood of my lot," Harry replied, reigning in his nasty tone.

"Truly, you must be a child of destiny."

"Hm."

"Ah well, we've all our station in life: merchants, and witchers, and bandits one and all," the merchant reclined and patted his yellow-shirted belly. "Goodness, that was a fine meal, especially being so far from the city! I thank you, Witcher Harry, for indulging a fool his idle chatter. It seems our time is up."

The door to the kitchen banged open, and out waddled the fat innkeep. "Oh, Master Witcher!" he cried, "I apologise, I didn't hear you."

"It's quite alright, innkeep, I had more than enough company with-" he turned back to find himself sitting an empty table, plates and meat miraculously absent, and the merchant of mirrors had also disappeared.

"What was that, Master Witcher?" asked the inkeep as he puttered around the serving table, pouring the bear-school witcher an ample tankard of fresh water.

"Nothing," replied Harry, still looking about for any trace of the merchant he'd spent so long talking to, "it's not been much of a wait at all."

At that moment, Ron stepped down the hall, whistling a jaunty tune as he came to the table. "My, you're spry for all that armor."

"Hm?" Harry questioned.

"It's only been a minute or two since I last saw you and you're already here, fully dressed."

"What?" Harry asked. He had been sitting in that table for well over twenty minutes. Ron gave him an equally confused look and Harry shook his head. "Er, never mind. My mind's a little occupied."

Ron shrugged, sat, and began chattering away about the leshen; Harry listened, but one portion of his mind remained preoccupied with the disappearing merchant.

* * *

The first day of searching for the marked individual proved fruitless. Harry and Ron scoured the village from port to exterior wall, but even for all their enhanced senses, they found not a single trace of the person in question. That evening, they trudged back to the ealdorman's home, and told the elder what had happened:

"It's very strange," Ron said, rubbing his forehead and then running a hand through his ginger hair, today tied back in the Rivian style. "Usually it's no trouble to find someone bearing a Leshen's mark. It shouldn't have taken very long at all."

Harry shook his head. "We'll take another look tomorrow. If there's still no one to be found, we'll enter the forest and fight the Leshen."

"But, you won't be able to kill it!" protested the ealdorman.

"I know," said Harry. "But we'll be able to dispense with it for a short time at least. Afterward, you'll be free to look through the woods for your missing girls. And from then on, avoid going into the forest."

The ealdorman's expression turned ugly. "I'll not pay for a job half-finished. You will deal with leshy permanently, or you'll not see one bloody copper from me!"

"Whoa, whoa!" exclaimed Ron. "Let's not be rash here."

Harry ignored his companion and stood, expression grim and unchanging. "As you wish. Fifty ducats is a pitiful sum for a leshen that ancient, anyway. If that'll be all, I'll make my way to Cintra. From what I've heard, they're having a spot of trouble with a dracolisk around the coast. Coram's like to pay a ransom for its head."

He made his way to the door.

The ealdorman's ugly expression faded away and was quickly replaced by a pale mask of fear. "Perhaps Master Ron was right, there's no need to be hasty, is there?"

The black-haired witcher stilled. "No, there's not."

"Forgive me, Master Witcher, that was unworthy of me. But you cannot expect me to pay out to you two if the townsfolk cannot be sure of their safety! What will they think of me if I simply roll over?"

"How about this," said Ron before Harry could speak, "after we defeat the Leshen, we will help look for your missing girls. Once they're found, you'll pay us the agreed sum. Is that fair?"

Harry made to protest but was silenced with a uncharacteristic serious look from the normally jovial wolf-school witcher.

The ealdorman looked unenthusiastic about the arrangement but grudgingly nodded. "Aye, that sounds fair. But you must try to find whoever has been marked by the leshy, and I'll only permit if, and only if, you still haven't found whoever it is the monster has cursed by sundown tomorrow."

"Okay," said Ron. "We'll reconvene tomorrow at dusk, whether we've found the marked one, or not."

Harry nodded curtly, and was the first out the door.

"Dangerous method of negotiation," said Ron affably, once they were out the door. "Are you always so stiff and curt?"

Relaxing, Harry let out a smile. "Only when I need to be. A leshen like that would probably months, if not years to regenerate. And it would take decades to return to the power it has today."

"True enough, it would hardly be a danger for some time yet. But, you know how it is, when people hear 'temporary', they get quite put out. No one likes to spend a 100 ducats on a stopgap."

"Be that as it may," said Harry, "we've still another day to find someone."

"We've been all across this town, looking, and no one seems to be afflicted; had the ealdorman not agreed to your proposition, I would have left for Cintra as well."

Harry shrugged. "We try again, I guess. Tomorrow."

Ron nodded. "Tomorrow."

* * *

II.

* * *

Dread crept over him, and Harry leapt awake, one hand on the sabre that had been propped against his bed.

He whirled around in the empty, dark room, finding no one. Yet he couldn't discount the feeling of being watched, and crept upon. Still alert, Harry moved toward the open window to his room, and felt the cool breeze nuzzle his cheeks. He looked out into the silence and murk of moonlit night, and suddenly, he heard it.

The sound of a flute on a distant wind.

And far from the town centre, near the forest, he saw what was nearly a speck moving toward the darkened trees. It moved and swayed silently to the music. With a start, Harry saw legs and arms, and a ringletted head bobbing up and down. It was a girl, no older than fourteen, dance-walking her way into the woods.

"Shite," he murmured to himself lowly.

He threw on his robe and armor as quickly as possible, and belted his swords over the shoulder and back. In his haste, he rushed out the door, forgetting in that moment that he was working with a partner on this contract.

The witcher ran, soundless and quick, past darkened huts and empty stalls. His golden eyes, glowed with intensity as he rushed toward the forest's edge, but when he reached there, the girl had long disappeared beyond the trees, and yet the strange, lilting song of the flute remained, closer now, but still far away.

Looking down, Harry quickly located the girl's tracks, barefooted, twisting and turning. Raising one hand to his blades, Harry stood at the ready to draw whichever one he would need in the coming minutes, and then, he entered.

Aside from the distant music, and the bubbling of the closer brook, the forest seemed dead. Even the wolves didn't come out, this time. Harry still remained cautious as followed the girl's tracks to the brook and beyond the obstacles Harry and Ron had faced the day before, into the glade. At the other end of the glade, Harry spotted the girl, thin as a slip and garmented in a white sleeping frock, disappear into the woods where he had the fought the leshen.

This only inspired Harry to move more quickly, around the edges of the glade, to avoid any chance of being easily spotted by the leshen, in case it had already healed by now. When he reached the other end where the girl had disappeared, his medallion jumped alive, jittering wildly. Harry gripped the bear to keep it from making any noise, though it vibrated furiously in a fist.

The flute became louder, and louder, and the girl seemed to be getting closer, and closer to the origin. Harry followed behind, tree-to-tree until the lilting music hit fever pitch, and the girl stopped dead, in a tiny clearing where a natural formation of boulders sat high.

The sound of the flute suddenly stopped. Harry looked up, and saw a figure sat upon the tallest boulder. The figure looked up, and Harry was taken aback: she had long, black hair, eyes that sparkled like two hunks of jade quartz, full, rose lips, and ears not unlike Harry's. She wore a green surcoat, lined with mail so as to defend, but remain flexible and light as well. In her hand was an intricately carved flute; a bow rested on her lap underneath a silk-orange sash, which tied together with a rough-hewn belt.

From the belt, dangled a sword, and the tail of a squirrel.

Harry drew his blade, but stayed hidden behind the tree; the girl may have been in danger, but he would help no one by running blindly into a trap and being used as a pincushion for hidden Scoia'tael archers.

The elfwoman smiled kindly at the girl. " _Ceádmil, elaine_."

The girl smiled back, and spoke, as if in a trance: " _Ceádmil, Aen Woedbeanna_."

Harry grimaced; she was definitely in a trance. Few, if any, peasant girls could speak the elder language, and somehow, Harry doubted she was one of them. The Scoia'tael elf smiled at the girl once more:

"You shall come with us. You shall no longer know the pain the _dh'oine_ subject you to. With us, you shall be free."

The girl nodded, ambling toward the rocks on which the woman sat. Harry grimaced once more; and tried to listen for any hidden Scoia'tael units hidden among the trees. When he couldn't sense anyone, he prepared to make a run for the girl, but stopped dead when the Scoia'tael woman spoke once more.

She raised up a hand, and the girl stopped: "Come out, _vatt'ghern_. I can smell you a mile away. You will not be harmed."

 _Game's up now_ , thought Harry to himself, as he crept out of the relative safety of the trees, blade still drawn. The girl turned from the rock face toward Harry, and the woman above blinked in surprise:

"Well this _is_ interesting," she said with an impish grin, tapping at her chin with the flute. "I'd not known that your kind allow _Aen Seidhe_ to be mutilated and turned into monster hunters. Though, it makes sense, why waste a perfectly good human boy on the mutations?"

Harry kept his eyes on the woman. "I'm only half."

"Ah," laughed the woman, "that's good. For a moment, I'd thought the _dh'oine_ had forgotten all respect for other peoples."

"Interesting perspective," replied Harry, "for one who steals away human girls during the night."

"I don't like to think of it as stealing," replied the woman, standing up so that the full light of the moon fell upon her. Suddenly, Harry understood:

"Ah," he said, indicating the green skin the pale moonlight fell upon. "So you're a dryad of Brokilon, then? Why the coat, and the squirrel tail?"

The dryad shook her head. "I am not of Brokilon. Though I was, once."

"Once?"

"Call it a difference of opinion."

"On what?"

"On who to offer salvation."

"Salvation from what?" Harry grunted, annoyed at the dryad's evasive nature.

The dryad's lip curled. "I'd hardly expect one such as you to understand."

"Try me."

"I offer them solace, in the embrace of the forest," she harrumphed, "away from the cruelty of man. Here, they will live, and be protected from you _dh'oine_."

As if on cue, the ghostly figures of girls appeared behind her, flanking the dryad upon the rock and looking down on the witcher. They, too, were dressed in the green of the Scoia'tael.

Harry's brows furrowed. "You've taken these girls from their homes, their families, everyone they've ever known."

"What of it?" asked the dryad.

"Am I to believe you call kidnapping and brainwashing children a kindness?"

The woman tossed her long, raven hair, and sighed aloud. "Yes. A lesser kindness than I would have hoped, but a kindness still, in the face of the world they will inherit," Harry waited for her to elaborate, and the dryad eventually complied. "War. Famine. Rape. That's the world they'll inherit from your precious humans. They will cast each of these women aside, force them to bear children for men who don't care whit about them, and they will grow old without ever having a voice in their own homes. Am I to believe you call _that_ a kindness?"

Harry lowered his blade, pondering the wisdom of the dryad's words. "How do you do it? Magic?" the dryad blinked at the question. "My medallion shakes around you. And it only ever shakes around magic or monsters."

The dryad nodded. "There is magic here, but it's not me," she raised the flute that had been playing in the wind. "All the power in the world is vested in this flute."

"Where did you get it from?"

"A djinn," she answered quickly, to an incredulous look from the witcher. "Don't gawk; they do exist, regardless of what your infallible bestiary tells you. And this one was very, very powerful. He granted me this flute, with power over all things natural. With this, I can topple kings, set brother against brother, loose every nekker in the forest upon a town, force wives to kill their husbands and mothers to drown their babes. Anything naturally made, I can command; so of course, the one thing I can't is a mutant."

Harry ignored the gibe. "You said a djinn granted you the flute as a wish. What did this 'djinn' want in return?"

"Nothing that concerns you. The only reason you're still alive is because I wish for you to understand why things are the way they are. And for you to leave." she said. "If you wish for these girls to live a life free of the diseased world you come from, you will get on your horse, or ferry, or however you decide to travel, and leave before sun-up tomorrow. Otherwise..." she let the threat hang.

Harry made a show of considering the offer. The dryads were a fiercely isolationist culture, but they rarely ventured out of the Brokilon Forest. That one would be here in Scoia'tael colours was a telling bit of information. As he mulled over the options, the girl in the white frock climbed up the rocks to stand with the dryad, and Harry heard a soft rustling in the trees. Had he the hearing of a normal man, he would be none the wiser, but it appeared that the dryad and whoever her companions were had underestimated him. The sound of waxed string and the slight creak of bending wood reverberated loudly through his eardrums.

 _Archers. Two of them, one on either side, in the branches of the trees_.

"I didn't come here for the girls," replied Harry. "My contract bids me to kill a leshen."

"I forbid it," said the dryad, "with the flute, the leshen is our best method of protection; it keeps us safe from the _dh'oine_."

"Then I can't accept your offer."

"Please reconsider, _vatt'ghern_ ," entreated the green-hued beauty. "You may work for them, but you are not truly a _dh'oine_. They despise you, and yet you would risk death for them?"

"No, not for them. Sorry, _Aen Woedbeanna_ , but this is strictly business."

The dryad frowned, and waved the girls away. They complied soundlessly, stepping back over the ridge and out of Harry's line of sight. Then, sounding as though she had truly wished to avoid bloodshed, the woman spoke:

"So it seems they speak true of witchers: won't lift a finger without pay. If that's business, then, I'm sorry, but so is this," she said, and raised her arm, before quickly bringing it down, and shouting, "Loose!"

Harry dived behind the trees as two thick arrows criss-crossed one another in the air, and smacked deep into differing trees on opposite sides of the clearing. He kept his sword low, and unobtrusive as he made for the first archer, location given away by strained breathing. The archer drew the bowstring once more, but not before the witcher had reached the tree they were perched in, and hit the trunk as hard as possible with the Sign of Aard. The tree rocked and shook, and the archer tumbled from a high branch, crashing into the ground painfully.

The witcher saw the face of the would-be attacker and blinked in surprise. A handsome, angular face, pale blonde hair, and tipped auricles gave him away as an elf, but a proper elf of the Hill Folk, who had mostly been confined to edge of the world in Dol Blathanna. So, the dryad was Scoia'tael after all. The witcher grasped a dagger attached to his belt, and drove it deep into the throat of the fallen elf, tearing it right and ripping through soft flesh.

Harry withdrew the blade and ignored the gurgling from the dying Squirrel, before hitting the ground and creating a pulsing shield using the Sign of Quen. An arrow whizzed into the shield and bounced off pitifully. Harry reached for one of the the three throwing knives strapped on his sword-belt, and threw into the leaves, smiling grimly when he heard a yelp of pain.

Darting through the trees, he bore down on the other archer, who pulled the throwing knife from where it had been embedded in his arm and threw it back at the witcher, who dodged it easily, and met the Squirrel's sabre. The witcher deftly pirouetted around the second strike, and found himself behind the Squirrel; drawing his dagger once more, Harry shoved it backward into the unarmoured part of the elf's hamstring. The Squirrel cried and fell to his knees, and the witcher, of a species not known for their mercy, whirled back around with his sabre and cleaved it through the elf's neck.

The head landed some five meters away, eyelids still twitching.

"You are a skilled fighter, _vatt'ghern_. I expected nothing less than excellence," said the dryad, as the sound of the flute came once more. The ground shook imperceptibly, and the sound of cracking, contorting wood reached Harry's ear. Barely reacting in time, Harry dodged out of the way as roots pushed up the through the dirt and crushed the air where he had been only moments earlier.

There, standing ten meters from Harry's would-be grave, was the leshen, renewed for another fight.

* * *

III.

* * *

A root slithered round his wrist and coiled several times over. Harry's silver longsword cut through it before it could press down, and then he faced down the leshen. Reaching into a pouch, the witcher withdrew a small, spherical object and threw it at the feet of the leshen. Frigid snow exploded outward from the volatile mix that had made up the bomb, and ensconced the thicket that made up the leshen's feet in ice. The leshen roared in a powerless rage and swiped angrily as the witcher neared.

Harry deftly dodged the blow and struck hard at the creature's weak point: at the elbow, yet once dismembered, the lost appendage grew back in a hurry, until the leshen had another wooden claw like the one it had just been relieved of. The regrown arm jutted outward, and Harry heard a distinct cawing sound, before it was drowned out in a veritable cacophony of noise. A murder of crows flew at him through the trees, and it was all the Bear School witcher could do to throw up an active Quen shield around himself, just as the crows swooped in.

Unmindful of the obstacle, the crows pecked away at the shield, beady eyes screaming bloody murder under the leshen's control. Harry grunted as the shield weakened, and broke it by sending a blast of pure magical energy a few feet around him. The birds fell one by one until all the murder lay murdered.

That, however, wasn't the end to the witcher's troubles, for while he'd been preoccupied with the crows, the leshen had chipped away at the ice surrounding its feet and broke fully free by the time Harry had dealt with the avian nuisance.

Now truly enraged, the leshen let out a sibilant roar, and the forest suddenly came alive. The branches of the trees surrounding them dipped low, and grew long and gnarled. They swiped at him, trying to encase the monster hunter in a tomb not unlike the ones the boys from the village had found themselves in. For one very long moment, all Harry could see was bark-brown and leaf-green, before another sign of Aard blew the obstacles away, and Harry found himself facing another pack of wolves, puppeteered by the leshen, itself puppeteered by the flute-playing dryad on the lonely cliff of boulders.

For all his years of training, Harry wasn't prepared for the sudden onrush of wolves, birds, and roots, and suddenly found himself encased once more. And a pressure squeezed against him. It felt as though his head would burst, and his heart would hammer into oblivion, his bones felt crushed and mangled and his skin felt like rubber. But worse than all of that was how difficult it was to breathe. It hurt to inhale and was a positive struggle to exhale, and soon even that was gone, replaced only by the spiderwebs of dark that danced at the edge of Harry's vision.

Desperation seized at the witcher, and his next move was wild and reckless, as a flame spread through the wooden sepulcher he was laid within, and burst out into the trees surrounding the wolves and the leshen. The tomb withered and opened, and Harry alive, and mostly unharmed, came tumbling out, barely stopping to catch his breath before whirling around and using the Sign of Igni to trap the leshen within a raging circle of fire.

Pure anger and desire for survival fueled Harry now; he no longer cared to keep the leshen alive to find the one who had been marked. He would burn the monster and its damned lapdogs, then he would find the dryad and put an end to her and her flute as well.

Once the wolves and the woodland spirit had been trapped in the inferno, Harry returned to the clearing. The dryad had stopped playing music, and now sat upon the rock with a pleasant smile on her pretty face:

"What is your name, _vatt'ghern_?"

"Does it matter?"

"I should like to pay respect to such a mighty warrior. And I'd rather not continue calling you _vatt'ghern_ , if you please. The elder speech is usually like music to the ears, but that is such an ugly word."

The Bear School witcher regarded her for a moment in mirth. She had kidnapped children, tried to kill him, and now, with a raging inferno behind them, she had the compunction to ask his name? Scoia'tael or not, Harry rather admired her style.

"It's Harry. My name's Harry."

The dryad frowned. "What an utterly _common_ name for one so _uncommon_ as you."

Harry shrugged, as he began climbing the short path to the ridge on which the dryad sat. "It's the name my mother gave me."

"Your mother clearly lacked flair."

"Or perhaps she had too much of it," countered Harry with a smile, overcoming the last obstacle to the dryad, "and that's why I ended up a witcher, instead of something sensible and safe." He finished, the tip of his steel sabre only a few inches from her throat. He looked around for the girls, but there was only him, the dryad, and trees for miles. "So, you've asked me mine, and now I'll ask you yours."

"You may call me anything you'd like; you'd never be able to pronounce the name I was given by my mother."

"As you wish, Cerbin," said the witcher; he laughed when he received a glare from the Dryad:

"You think yourself a jester, then? Fine, you may call me Nimlaë, if it pleases you."

Harry nodded. "It does. We've only a scant few minutes before the night watchmen in the village notice the fire; knowing them, the stupid fools will run full tilt into the forest to see what's happened."

"And?"

"I wish to be finished with you before then."

Nimlaë gave a poisonous smile in return. "And I wish to be finished with you," she said, jumping away from the witcher's blade, and drawing a short, curved blade that had been hanging from her belt, and raised it over her head, in the traditional offensive stance. Harry turned his own sabre downward, so that the edge faced the ground behind him, obscuring his own attack from the woman.

The dryad attack first, cutting diagonally, but the witcher danced out of the way, bringing his own sword up to swipe at her midsection, which Nimlaë parried easily. They both broke away from one another and stood at the ready, a few metres apart:

"You're not half-bad," said the witcher, "I'd been told dryads were only good with the longbow."

"I strive to be better than most," the woman replied, with an air of practised confidence.

And, then they were atop each other once more, a deadly whirlwind of steel and flesh. She was far more nimble than a human enemy; whereas a fight with a lonesome highway bandit would be categorised by steel clanging on steel in a flurry of block and parries, Harry found himself whiffing at air more often than not, as Nimlaë proved herself equally capable of pirouetting and waltzing away from danger as the witcher could.

Still, he had physical mass and bulk on her, so that when she came close enough and missed her own thrusting lunge, Harry grabbed her by the arm and threw her over his shoulder, where she landed painfully at the edge of the ridge. Harry brought his sword down but only struck rock; the dryad had rolled out of the way, quick as a flash, and stood up behind him.

The witcher whirled round to face his enemy, and, quite suddenly, nearly tripped over his own feet. Righting himself, he felt a hard pressure at his left foot. Blocking a blow from the dryad's sword, he awkward kicked her away, and looked down. There, out of the rocky ridge, grew a strong root, like one belonging to tree, and it wrapped several times around his foot.

Nimlaë noticed it, too, and a slow smile spread across her face. "It seems your fire wasn't enough, _vatt'ghern_ ," she said, and pointed to the treeline where Harry had come from. He turned slowly, and saw emerging from the trees, the leshen, on its knees and wreathed in fire, but still moving with purpose. "The poor thing is soon to die. But, he's giving me one last chance to kill you."

She holstered her elven cutlass and drew a smaller, but equally curved, dagger.

"Prefer something more... personal?" asked the witcher, not letting any fear show as the roots reached up and ensnared his sword arm as well.

Nimlaë smiled. "No. You're simply too skilled; I don't want help from a forest spirit to kill you. I want to do that on my own."

"Cut me loose, then."

"Again, no," said the dryad, stepping close enough that Harry wouldn't have been able to hit her with the blade of his sword even if his hands were free. "I want to kill you on my own, but I've others to look after, now that you've destroyed our only protection. So, I won't kill you."

They stood nearly face-to-face, and he could feel her breath mingling with his own. "But you've a lesson to learn, and I won't mind if you're slowed down."

And then the world went off-kilter, up was down, the earth was the sky, and he was falling. Dully, it registered to the witcher that he'd been yanked off the ridge by the leshen's system of roots, and the pulsing pain in his foot suggested the leshen might have broken has ankle while doing so. He knew the earth was coming up to meet him quickly, and there was no way he's remain conscious once he hit ground. His only hope, at this point, was that the leshen would be dead before it could kill him.

The last thing he saw before he felt a jolt of pain and darkness, was Nimlaë looking over the ridge, smiling serenely at his falling body.

* * *

IV.

* * *

He awoke slowly, in a bed, and not in a forgotten forest clearing. His vision was still blurry, but he saw a curtain of black and a shock of red above him.

"He's waking," a male voice said distantly.

"Is he?" another asked, feminine, this time.

"Heart rate has picked up. He's waking," and as if to prove it, the red blob kneeled closer to him, and two sharp raps crashed against his throbbing forehead. "Oi. Nimrod. Can you hear me?"

"Ugh," he moaned back, "not so loud."

"See?" said the red one. "He's fine."

Harry flopped back, and thought back to the last thing he remembered. A burning forest, a beautiful woman, and a raging monster:

"Wha... what happened to the woman?" his vision came into focus just in time to spy Ron's confused face:

"What woman?"

Harry shook his head; Nimlaë must have escaped before Harry was found. "What about the leshen? What happened to it?" he asked, and sat up.

"You don't remember?" asked the second voice. Harry turned to see the ealdorman's daughter, Asha, holding what looked to be a jar of some medicinal salve, judging from the pungent aroma emanating from it.

"No," replied the Bear School witcher, running a hand through his hair. "What are you doing here, Asha?"

"I was tending to your injury," she demurred, pointing a slender, salve-lathered finger at Harry's ankle, which was tender and swollen.

"I told her not to fret, that all you needed was a swallow and you'd be fine, but apparently she apprenticed under the old apothecary who lived here, and the ealdorman practically begged me to take her along to tend to your wounds," shrugged Ron. "He's a kind man, when you get to the pointy end of things."

Harry smiled faintly; Asha's, as well as her father's, kindness was misplaced, but that didn't make it any less endearing. "Thank you," he said to her.

"It's nothing at all," she smiled back.

"So, about the leshen?" Harry asked, focusing his attention back on Ron.

"Well, I killed it," said Ron with a grin, "but it was already mostly dead by the time I happened across it," he finished, and pointed at the nightstand next to Harry's bed; atop it was a thick leather pouch. Harry reached out and picked it up, feeling the hard ridges of solid coin.

"At least they keep to a deal, here," quipped Harry, setting it back down on the nightstand.

"Mhm," said Ron, "I was awoken by the fire raging in the forest; didn't think you would be the cause of it."

"Yeah, sorry. It was a desperation move. Leshens are tricky monsters; I knew they were weak to fire, but also knew that Igni could burn the whole forest down. Had to weigh my options."

Ron nodded. "Nearly burned yourself down, as well. When I found you, you were laying at the bottom of a gully, dead unconscious with the flames licking at your heels. Looked like you took a tumble."

"I did."

"What were you doing on the ridge?"

Harry exhaled sharply. "Scoia'tael. They were the ones behind the girls going into the forest." Asha gasped at the admission, and Ron looked troubled:

"How? Everything the butcher told us was consistent with a monster luring them into the forest."

"That's what I thought, at first. People being hypnotised, sounds like an open-and-shut case of a chort having taken residence in your forest, but it was Scoia'tael. They were led by this dryad."

"The women from Brokilon are in on this, too!?" Asha exclaimed, and Harry held up a hand for silence:

"She said she wasn't of Brokilon. I don't know if I believe her, but I didn't see any other dryads, just elves."

"Elves? You're sure?" Ron asked.

"I'm bloody well sure," Harry snapped back, losing his patience for a short moment, "two elven snipers, Scoia'tael, I killed them. You _must_ have found their bodies."

"Don't bite my head off, I'm just trying to get facts down," Ron said. "There was little else there but fire, and anything that was there has been burned to ash by now. You're lucky I even came by in time to rescue you, let alone find the corpses of two elven archers."

"Either way, they were led by a dryad, named Nimlaë. She had this flute, and when she played it, things would suddenly bend to her will. She could control the leshen through it. That's why all the lads who went into the forest looking for the girls never made it back. She'd have the leshen specifically attack them."

"A flute that can control a monster?"

"And people, too. She has 'power over all things natural'. Surprise, surprise, it didn't work on a mutant," said Harry, "apparently she got it from a _djinn_."

" _A djinn_ ," deadpanned Ron, looking as sceptical as Harry imagined he must have when Nimlaë told him the same thing.

"Her words, not mine," repeated the other witcher with some mirth. "But whether she really received it from a djinn, or not, that flute has power. I saw it with my own eyes with the girls."

"The girls?"

"The ones that had gone missing. They were _completely_ under her control. I imagine they must have left with her."

"What?" asked Ron. "No, no, they couldn't have been with her. We found them."

Harry's blood ran cold. "You _what_?"

"Yeah, some ways away from the fire, after the whole thing had calmed down. One of the boys from the village found them; they claimed it was the leshen that lured them. That somehow it spoke to them, and they were powerless to resist."

"And you believed them?"

Ron's eyes narrowed. "Not especially, no, but it's a plausible story. We still don't know much about leshens, particularly one as old and powerful as the one here."

"Where are they now?"

"The townsfolk gathered in pig farmer's barn to throw a party," replied Asha, "it's something like tradition whenever someone returns from a long journey. My da' suggested to do the same now that all the girls are back, safe and sound."

"A party?" Harry questioned. "How long have I been out?"

"The better part of a day," replied Ron.

"Give me a swallow," said Harry quickly, face pale and drawn.

Ron pulled a vial filled with orange liquid from a pouch on his belt and handed it to Harry, but again, looked troubled by his compatriot's expression; Asha looked equally worried as Harry gulped down the contents of the potion he'd been handed:

"What's going on, Master Witcher?" she asked hurriedly.

"That flute was _powerful_ ; it did things I can't explain. There's no way the girls could suddenly break free from Nimlaë's grasp, and there's no way she'd just let them go. Those girls have come back into town for a reason, and there's probably a whole Scoia'tael unit out in that forest still. They're planning something."

"And you intend to find out what's going on?"

"Yes," Harry nodded, rising to dress and ready his weapons after the swallow had taken full effect, "if for nothing else than to meet that dryad again."

Ron snorted. "What? Fallen in love?"

His jest was met with a blush from Asha and a low chuckle from Harry. "You could say that. Though, our affair will likely end an unhappy one. Let's go. Asha, you come too. Show us where the pig farmer's barn is."

Asha nodded, and led the two witchers out from Harry's room in the inn and made there way toward the outskirts of town.

* * *

V.

* * *

The trio arrived at a large stable of barn, adapted easily to hold a hundred or more people, which ostensibly included the whole populace of Rohg.

"Hans, the pig farmer," Asha had explained, "uses this stable to store hay, tools, and spirit usually. There's another barn way at the other end of his property, where the hogs stay, which is why we use this stable for gatherings."

Music blared from inside, and through the open barn doors, Harry, Ron, and Asha could see that wives and husbands, boys and girls, all danced in the centre of the building. The girls who had been missing sat at a crude table on a dais overlooking the dancing throng.

Ron sighed in relief. "Look, everything's fine."

Asha nodded. "There's nothing at all wrong here."

Harry squinted, and shook his head. "For now," he said first, then he turned and observed to his left. "We're quite close to the forest."

"Hans likes it that way; it's far enough from the main village that the hogs aren't a nuisance," explained Asha.

"Uh-huh," he replied. "I should like to wait here for a time longer. Just to be sure."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Fine. We'll wait, but let's at least have a conversation or mingle among the crowd or something. I'd rather not sit out here like a voyeur," he said, drawing a tinkling laugh from the ealdorman's daughter.

"You can mingle fine out here. Have a conversation with Asha, or something," said Harry dully, as the three sat on a makeshift bench not far away from the doors to the barn.

Ron made a face. "What a bore he is, am I right, Asha dear?" he asked. "Handsome but empty-headed, and dull, dull as dishwater. Not like me."

"Ah, yes," mocked Harry, still paying attention to the girls at the table in the barn, "the epitome of wit and adventure, you are."

"It's good of you to acknowledge that," Ron smirked.

"Mhm," Harry replied blandly.

"Could you at least pretend to be bothered?"

"Mhm."

Ron exhaled in disgust. Realising he would gain absolutely nothing from sparring with his disinterested compatriot, he struck up a conversation with Asha about her apprenticeship with the apothecary.

"I didn't know you were a healer's apprentice."

"Oh, yes," replied the girl with a sunny smile. "The woman who taught me was born here but was in a wealthy enough family that they were able to scrounge up the money for her to attend the University at Oxenfurt..." Harry tuned her out.

What on earth was that dryad planning? The girls seemed to be enjoying themselves and looked relatively healthy and sound of mind, nothing like the walking dead they were the night before. The more he observed them, the more he thought it a possibility that they had somehow broken free of the flute's influence.

 _But, wait,_ thought the witcher _, if they're free of Nimlaë, why did they lie about the leshen taking them captive?_

"What's it like to be a witcher?" Asha asked Ron.

"Well," replied the redhead with a laughing cadence to his voice, "sometimes it's the greatest, most exhilarating job in the world. Other times I'd rather be shoveling shit out of the canals in Novigrad."

It occurred to Harry to simply walk into the stable and tell the ealdorman that the girls were lying about who had taken them captive, but he immediately quashed that urge. Ultimately, going down that route would stake his word against the word of the recently returned. A mutant versus young daughters and sisters who had lived in the town their whole lives; he'd never win that fight.

"What about you, Harry?" the ealdorman's daughter asked.

"What?" asked the black-haired witcher, drawn from his musings.

"What do you think of being a witcher?"

"If not for the Law of Surprise, I could have been many things. Ultimately, I kill things for a living and that's the long and short of it. It's neither good nor bad; it just is."

Asha shook her head and laughed.

Harry blinked, perplexed at her behaviour. "What?"

"It's a terrible answer you gave, Master Witcher."

Harry grunted in annoyance, and went back to watching the girls, only to realise, that three out of the ten girls had disappeared from their seats. His eyes scanned for them, but couldn't spot them, his ears searched for them, and heard them coming outside, through another exit that he couldn't see from his perch.

The witcher thought about getting up, but then another girl left, and then another, and another. The other townsfolk where too caught up in their wild revelry to notice them leaving, and when one was stopped, she simply said something about needing fresh air and they let them pass. Soon, all the girls were outside the barn, loitering at the doors.

"Ron," he said lowly.

Ron ignored him in favour of talking to Asha.

" _Ron_ ," Harry said, more urgently this time.

"What?" the wolf-school witcher asked, not bothering to hide his annoyance.

"Something's happening," the other witcher replied, indicating the four girls who conversed quietly amongst themselves just outside the massive doorway.

"Four girls having a conversation, is what it loo-" Ron stopped dead, and grasped something at his chest. Momentarily, Harry felt it, too. His medallion began vibrating against his sternum like it might when facing down an army of wraiths.

And then the song came; high, lilting, and yet somehow mournful. Harry's body tensed in anticipation. Nimlaë was nearby. Harry looked to his right, and saw Asha, completely still; her eyes looked forward sullenly, unseeing. The girls by the door tensed as well, and then moved in a jerky fashion, over to the doors. With two girls grasping either door, they heaved it shut; one grasped a discarded wooden board afterward, and shoved it between the door.

Ron said it first. "Oh, shit."

The two witchers jumped up in hopes of running to the girls, but instantly had to take cover, when from the forest, a barrage of arrows came at them. Harry instinctively grabbed the unresponsive Asha by the shoulders and dove behind the bench they'd been sitting on. Ron followed behind, and kicked it over so the three could use it as cover from any incoming arrows.

While the witchers cowered behind the bench, several arrows peppered another series of targets: the bales of hay that had been moved out of the barn and placed against its side to make room for the party. Within moments, they were burning.

"Fire arrows?" Ron asked.

"Must be," grunted the other witcher, as the flames spread to the barn.

"They're trying to burn the villagers!? Why? Why now?" Ron shouted as an arrow just barely missed him when it went flying over the bench.

"It might have to do with the leshen."

"What!?"

"The dryad said that the leshen protected them in the forest. She said she would let me go if I promised not to harm it. When I said no, she had her archers and then the leshen itself attack. Maybe she thinks that without the leshen to defend them, she has to go on the offensive before they come back?"

"A solid theory," said Ron, as he lifted the unresponsive girl and hefted her over his shoulder. "One of us needs to get her out of here. I'll try and hurry back."

Grimacing, Harry nodded. "Go. Be quick. I'll try and stop the fire before it gets worse."

Both witchers cast Quen shield on themselves and darted out from their cover, Ron back towards town, and Harry toward the smoking barn. The people inside were starting to take note of the fire, and as expected, they rushed for the exit. Harry could hear the frantic sounds of footsteps, and then pounding at the door when they realised it had been closed and they'd been locked inside. The girls stood at a safe distance, and looked on at the burning building with serene smiles upon their pale faces.

Harry darted for the doors, but was stopped cold as the fire arrows intended for the barn were now aimed for him. Harry danced away from the arrows, and kept moving to avoid being hit; he heard footsteps some twenty paces behind him in the direction Ron had left, and hoped the witcher would now be coming, but instead, he saw three guards, dressed in varying degrees of armour, and one with a wooden buckley, the Cintrian Lions painted crudely across it. They, too, had a vacant look in their eyes like the girls and Asha, and drew weapons the moment they had the witcher in their sights.

He deftly avoided a spiked cudgel aimed for his head, and Harry dived out of the way of an incoming arrow, that struck one of the attacking guards in the meaty flesh of the thigh. He stumbled over with a cry of pain, but Harry still found himself faced with the shield-bearing guard, and his friend. Quickly moving through a set of signs, Harry cast the sign of Aard at the two, causing the shield to splinter and break, and the other guard fell to the ground, right in front of Ron, who had just returned from his mad dash.

"I've got them," the redheaded witcher shouted to Harry, "you get the villagers out of that barn!"

Harry turned toward the burning barn and sprinted toward it, only to hear something strange and then be lifted in the air. The air erupted all around him, and the doors blew outward, belching flame with smell of brimstone and burnt flesh. Harry rolled quickly to his side, and stood, only to be greeted by a warzone. Mangled, burned bodies huddled in a mass near the exits, and closer the smell lingered, mixing with that of rancid alcohol. He listened for a heartbeat, and found none. All were dead. A fat, bubbling belly indicated the innkeep had been there, and the ealdorman, and even Jonas-the-butcher had been there. All were gone. An entire village wiped out in one fell swoop.

Harry followed the smell of alcohol and found a group of charred and exploded barrels.

 _So, that was cause of the explosion, then_.

"I suppose vodka's not _always_ the answer to everything, then," that familiar voice said. Harry turned to his side, and saw Nimlaë emerge from the forest with a unit of Scoia'tael, numbering seven in all.

"Why?" asked Ron, standing up. "What was the _point_ of that!?"

Nimlaë smiled serenely at Harry. "You should have known there would be consequences for killing that leshen. That we'd have to retaliate before the _dh'oine_ came and smoked us out of the forest and into our graves. And now you know. Lesson learned."

"And _you_ should know there are consequences for behaving like a brute," another voice accused, male, but not Harry's or Ron's. In the other direction, where the guards had come from, a nondescript man in a traveling cloak came humping up the gentle slope.

Ron looked perplexed. "Who the hell are you?" he asked.

"Master Mirror?" Harry questioned. "Go. Run. You shouldn't be here."

"Oh, Harry, Harry," chided the merchant, "I think you'll find soon enough that I am _exactly_ where I belong. Isn't that right, Nimlaë?"

The Scoia'tael responded by drawing their blades and their bowstrings back, but Nimlaë looked stricken, as pale as her green-tinged skin could be. The merchant lowered his hood and revealed that unremarkable face of his once more, and smiled. It wasn't a smile of joy, it wasn't even a smirk, or wry grin. There was something _off_ about it, and Harry very suddenly felt unnerved by this man who possessed no exceptional feature.

"Hey, Harry, who is th-" Ron asked to Harry's side, and then stopped suddenly.

Because Master Mirror clapped, twice. And the world froze.

Nothing seemed different at first, but then, Harry realised he, the merchant, and the dryad were the only ones still moving. Ron had frozen, standing over one of the downed guards, who also stayed frozen in that position. In the other direction, none of the Scoia'tael moved, blinked, or even breathed.

"What's going on?"

The merchant placed his hands behind his back and faced Harry. "This is the face of time."

"What?"

"We exist in a vacuum, a pocket dimension, right now. At this moment, nothing in the world is moving. Well, nothing but for us. Be proud, Master Witcher, you've been given an honour so few receive. And you, my sweet Nimlaë," he said, addressing the dryad now, "the time has come to depart."

"But our deal was..."

"No less than three years after I give you that flute, and when the the Lions of Cintra lay broken," the Merchant pointed to the shield Harry had splintered with his Aard attack earlier. "And there, the Lions of Cintra lay, crushed and broken."

"What? No!" Nimlaë shouted. "That was _not_ our deal!"

"I'm afraid it was. You may have _meant_ the royal lineage, but that's not what you told me. Such a shame, because you dryads and elves can't speak frankly, because you must make a poem or a song out of everything, that our deal comes to a close. If it's any consolation to you, you've helped no one. All you've done is bewitched some girls and murdered their families. Such a kindness, that was, wasn't it?"

He raised up a hand, and the dryad doubled over in pain.

"No one will miss you, so there's no reason to be afraid," the merchant finished.

"Master Mirror, wait," Harry said, and the merchant stopped. "I don't know who, or what, you are, but she's mine to kill."

"No, Harry," said Master Mirror, "she's been mine far longer than you'll ever know."

The dryad collapsed to her knees as the merchant redoubled his efforts. She screeched and screamed, clawed at her face and throat, as her flesh peeled from her bones and her eyeballs melted into a blue-green goo. Nimlaë died in great pain, and only Harry, and the man who killed her, heard the woman's last howl before she dissipated into dust. By the end, the only thing left of her was a skeleton stripped bare and that flute which had caused so much pain.

Master Mirror went over and retrieved. "That so much could be accomplished with something so small," he said fondly, and began to walk away, in the direction of the forest.

"Master Mirror," Harry called, the merchant stilled. "Who are you?"

"Nameless," he repeated his answer from their conversation at the inn. "But maybe, Harry, just maybe, you may one day yet find out."

Harry felt coldness seep through him as the man said that.

"Don't worry, when time returns to you, those Scoia'tael will be long gone," Master Mirror said, raising his hands up and clapping twice more as Harry closed his eyes.

"-is guy?" Ron finished. "Wait. What? Where is everyone?"

Harry's eyes fluttered open. Harry and Ron stood alone, the Scoia'tael were gone, the guards were gone, the girls were gone; the only people left were themselves, and the dead. "Gone, it looks like."

"Gone where?"

Harry slid to the ground, back resting against the overturned bench he, Asha, and Ron had sat on before everything went to hell.

"I don't know," he replied, shuddering. "I don't know if I want to know." There were a great many things Harry confessed he didn't know, but he had learned one thing: today, he had seen the face of Evil.

* * *

Epilogue

* * *

"Where will you be taking her?" Harry asked, as he and Ron walked through the desolate town.

"Cintra. Says her aunt married into a well-to-do family there. And I might be able to take that dracolisk contract. You?"

"Going North. Temeria, Redania, don't care as long as it's not here," replied Harry, tossing the leather pouch of fifty ducats in his hands. "Might try Oxenfurt; there's no shortage of work to be had in the Gustfields this time of year."

Ron looked back on the empty town of Rohg. "We really fucked this one up, didn't we?"

"Mhm," Harry answered, as they hit the outskirts of the town, where two mares and Asha, with her red-rimmed eyes awaited. "Still, it's decent of you to take the girl to her family."

Ron smiled sadly at the girl. "It's the only kindness we can give her."

* * *

 **A/N** : Holy shit that was long. And if I had more time to flesh things out, particularly closer to the end, it would have been even longer. The ending is probably why I'm not totally happy with this chapter, but it would have been really egregious if this had dragged on any further. Next chapter will be a framing chapter, followed by the next short story, in the vein of the earlier witcher books. So, after the framing chapter, is the next short story, featuring Harry and Hermione in Oxenfurt, hunting a djinn. Don't you just love deja vu?

Chapter Notes:

Master Mirror: If it wasn't obvious enough by now, he's Gaunter O'Dimm, better known as the main antagonist of Hearts of Stone.

Djinns: Both Harry and Ron seem sceptical of the existence of djinns, which is somewhat taken from The Last Wish short story, because Geralt doesn't seem to believe in them either, until Yennefer basically spells it out for him

Cerbin: The Dryad tells Harry to call her whatever he wants, after she spends her time shit-talking humans, and he proceeds to call her the name of the first king of Cintra. A+ in how to not give a fuck.

I really just like the idea of Harry and Nimlaë getting ready for this great big climactic fight in the vein of Geralt and Renfri in The Lesser Evil, and then Gaunter basically shows up and fucks shit up for no other reason than because he can.

Thanks for reading, a short chapter may be up soon, but the one with Harry and Hermione may take a little longer.

Geist.


	4. The Last Enemy, Part 1

**WARNING:** This fic was updated yesterday with a third chapter that you might have missed; if you haven't yet finished all parts of "The Lesser Kindness", click back a chapter and do so.

 **Summary** : After their flight from the Temple of Melitele in Ellander, two travelers stop at an inn for the night, and stumble onto an adventure.

* * *

 **THE LAST ENEMY**

1

* * *

1251, August  
Twenty miles from the borders of Ellander  
House of Respite

* * *

The flagons of beer jittered atop the serving platter as the innkeep handed it over to the witcher.

Inconvenienced by the platter, he set it down on the table and made off for a corner of the small, but lively alehouse, with a jug in either hand. The witcher avoided a drunken band of mercenaries at one table, gracefully turned away from a man pushing out from his bench, and stopped in front of his table.

Which was curiously empty.

"Geralt!" A voice shouted from somewhere to his left. "Over here!" Geralt turned, and saw his traveling companion, a brown-haired dandy dressed in the finest plum velvet, in deep conversation with another patron:

"Dandelion," groused Geralt as he strode over to the other table, "stop disturbing the other guests."

"I'm hardly disturbing him," replied Dandelion with a roguish grin, as he fluffed his feathered beret so that it sat just right on his head.

"You're disturbing everyone," the witcher deadpanned.

The other man, the one Dandelion was talking to, laughed. "Ah, I'm not bothered by him; so few talk to old men like me that I'd take the ramblings of a fool mummer."

"How dare you, sir!" Dandelion gasped in mock outrage, "I'll have you know I am a poet, a songster, a _bard of bards_. Not a _mummer_."

"Forgive me my insult, bard of bards; I did not know," the other man apologised insincerely, and then looked up at Geralt to make his acquaintance. Both men froze. Geralt cursed himself for not noticing the armour, but the greying hair and calm demeanour had thrown him off.

The man was handsome, in a rugged way, scar-marked as his face was, with hair once jet-black, but now closer to salt-and-pepper, with high cheekbones and a strong jaw obscured by a traveler's beard. His hair was cut and tied back in the Cintrian style, the shaved sides revealing ears that were only slightly pointed, but Geralt suspected this man was, like Yennefer, at least partially elven. Despite all that, his eyes were the key, for when Geralt looked into them, he saw his own eyes staring back.

Dandelion, seeing that both men had realised their shared affliction, laughed heartily. "Now, do you see why I 'disturbed' him, Geralt?"

The other witcher's eyes alighted with some unspoken recognition of the name, but as quickly as it came, it went, and he extended a hand to Geralt: "Harry. Bear School."

"Geralt. Wolf School," Geralt replied tersely, then stopped short, "I thought the Bear School had been..."

"Yes," answered Harry, running a hand through his graying hair, "I'm the last one."

"Ugh," moaned Dandelion.

Geralt narrowed his eyes at his poet friend. "What?"

"Short sentence. Short affirmative. Deadpan, serious, and terse," the bard mocked, "I swear you witchers are all the same brooding blowhards."

"No we're not," Geralt said.

Dandelion snorted in farcical contempt. "Fine. Let's prove it: Harry?"

"Yes?" answered the Bear School witcher.

"What's your opinion on sorceresses?" the bard asked with a sly look at Geralt, whose normally pale cheeks tinged ever so slightly with colour.

"Always avoid them," the other witcher said knowledgeably, to Dandelion's apparent glee, "unless you want to fall in love."

Dandelion positively cackled and Geralt felt somewhat as though someone was playing a particularly elaborate prank on him. The other witcher noticed:

"Ah, trouble with a sorceress, I take it?"

Geralt didn't respond; he merely sat and offered the other beer to Harry, after gulping down his own, much to Dandelion's annoyance:

"Wait, Geralt, that's my beer!" he exclaimed; the two witchers shrugged and continued drinking. "Brutes," the bard said acridly, before returning to the subject at hand: "Trouble doesn't even begin to describe it, Harry. This sorceress must be a banshee in disguise."

"Really? Doesn't sound all that different from some of the sorcerers and sorceresses I've met in my time."

"Ha! Do most sorceresses you meet destroy half of Rinde?"

Harry snorted in amusement. "That was _you_?"

"You know of it?"

"I stopped by a few weeks later and the townsfolk practically ran me out of town. Every time I'd been to Rinde before, they were the welcoming type of folk; I had wondered why they suddenly became hostile," answered the black-haired witcher. "So, what happened?"

Geralt nodded over to Dandelion. "He likes telling the story more than I do."

"Because, Geralt," condescended the bard, "you've the soul of a shoemaker, not a bard, and lack the subtle nuances of academia to be an accomplished story-teller. Now, Harry, how shall give it to you? In verse?"

"Plain speak, thank-you-very-much," deadpanned the other witcher before Dandelion could go any further.

Geralt laughed; this witcher might not be so bad, after all. Dandelion, on the other hand, appeared to be regretting his choice of companion for conversation. "Of course you haven't the ear for the fine arts. Haaa..." he exhaled noisily, "nevertheless, I shall endeavour to educate you."

"Go on, then, educate me."

And educate Dandelion did, launching into a long-winded explanation of the events that happened in Rinde; of himself and Geralt fishing and finding that lamp, of the djinn inside who attacked Dandelion, of Geralt's first meeting with Yennefer, and her conniving plan to trap the Djinn and use it for her own ends. Dandelion relished telling the part where Geralt had realised that he alone was the Djinn's master, and wished for something that saved both himself and the sorceress from the djinn before it killed them and took half the city with it.

Throughout this, Harry remained silent, attentive, and he looked even a little nostalgic, to Geralt's consternation. Once Dandelion had finished speaking, and preened as though awaiting applause, the other witcher turned to Geralt and asked a simple question:

"What did you wish for?" he asked simply.

Geralt opened his mouth to answer, but unsurprisingly, Dandelion was first to reply: "He wished to tether himself to her for all his life," the bard snickered. "I mean, I understand monogamy as a _concept_ —not that I would ever do such a thing—but, really, Geralt? Binding yourself to _her_ , of all people?"

The other witcher laughed, too, but it wasn't a mocking one like Geralt's loudmouthed friend. "Ah, is that coincidence, or irony?"

Geralt raised a brow. "Is what coincidence or irony?"

Harry's brows furrowed, then lightened. "Perhaps you two can tell me."

"Tell you what?" Dandelion asked, now interested.

"Shall I tell you a tale?" Harry asked. "Of the time a sorceress hired me to hunt down a djinn?"

Dandelion gasped with childlike fervour. "Well, now that is an interesting tale! I'm always in the mood to hear a story. Tell it, Master Witcher, and I'll decide afterward whether it's coincidence or irony."

Harry turned to Geralt, who had to admit that his interest had also been piqued. The white-haired witcher merely nodded, beckoning his brother in arms to tell his tale:

"Well," said the elder witcher, "I'd just finished a strange leshen contract in Cintra, and came through Cidaris and Temeria, looking for work. They turned me away Kerack, Cidaris, and Gors Velen. And I hadn't heard any rumours of prospects in Vizima, so I decided to turn North, perhaps to find something in Novigrad," he paused and laughed lightly to himself, perhaps over an old thought or joke, "But I ended up with much more than I could bargain for in Oxenfurt, where I'd heard an elven sorceress paying top coin for someone with a witcher's skill..."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Hey, Geralt and Dandelion! So, I lied to you about Geralt not appearing in this fic, but he won't play a major role in this fic. Why? Well, as you've noticed, this Chapter takes place in 1251, right around the time (though the timeline is super vague during _The Last Wish_ and _The Sword of Destiny_ ) Geralt and Dandelion leave The Temple of Melitele, after Nenneke and Iola nurse Geralt back to health. So, that means this takes place after _The Last Wish_ and _Season of Storms_ , but before _The Sword of Destiny_ and the rest of the saga. And, The Lesser Kindness took place in the 1050s, which is approximately 200 years earlier. Most of the action will take place then, rather than the 1200s and the Geralt, Harry, and Dandelion portions of this fic are meant to be a sort of framing story, in the way "The Voice of Reason" is in _The Last Wish_.

There are really no chapter notes for this, since it's mostly a setup chapter.

Next chapter will take us back to 1054, where Harry and an "elven sorceress" hunt down a djinn.

Thanks for reading,  
Geist.


	5. The Last Wish, Part 1

**Summary** : An sorceress contracts a witcher to capture a djinn, and everyone who has read The Last Wish collectively cringes at my lack of originality.

* * *

THE LAST WISH

* * *

I

* * *

It was near midnight when the witcher arrived, and Oxenfurt's bells screamed bloody murder.

When he crossed Guildenstern bridge, Harry expected an armed contingent to greet him, but was surprised to find the gate thrown wide open and no one guarding it. The bells, the unguarded gate, something significant must have been happening, but the black-haired witcher wouldn't sniff at the opportunity. Redanians were quite finicky about letting people into towns after dusk, so Harry thanked his good luck, shrugged the pack over his shoulder higher, and stole inside the city.

To his right, it appeared some commotion was going on at the gates to Oxenfurt University, and so, he traveled in the opposite direction. Whatever it was, the likelihood of a monster inside the university grounds seemed entirely unlikely; where there were no monsters, there was no gold, so the witcher couldn't particularly bring himself to care.

As he traveled down a long, sloped street toward the town centre, he passed a few rushing townsfolk, on their way to gawk at whatever was going on at the University, no doubt.

"Sir," Harry called out to one of the townsfolk, a thin man with mousy brown hair. "Can you point me to The Alchemy Inn?"

The man slowed only for a second to shout: "Down the street, on your right!"

With that, he sped back up and made for the university, not even waiting for a thank-you. Harry sighed, and supposed it couldn't be helped: most commonfolk thrived on the scandals that rocked whatever town they were in; travelers like him were often more concerned with having a roof to sleep under for the night. So, he turned away from the growing throng, and made his way to The Alchemy inn, a small, but cozy-looking tavern not but a brisk walk from the river's edge. Harry nodded; this was the place.

Inside, the savoury aroma of goat stew filled the witcher's nostrils and his stomach let out a rare grumble. He passed through a barren entryway, and into a stone-and-wood lounging area filled with empty tables, and opposite them, a bar where a homely woman sat and clipped her nails.

"Excuse me," Harry said to the woman, "are you the proprietor here?"

"Aye," she replied.

"How much for a room?"

"Three crowns a night for a room, four if you want board as well," the woman said without looking up from her nails. "Shall I prepare a room for you, then?"

"Fine. Four crowns it is," Harry said, and walked to the bar, where he laid out four coins on the serving table. The hag snatched up the nuggets of gold and gave the witcher a searching once over:

"I'm of accepting folk, because a mutant once saved my dear boy Pietr, so I'll tolerate you underneath my roof, but if you start a fight, I shall have you thrown out. Is that clear?"

"Clear as water."

"Good," the proprietor said, and leaned back, "this is an establishment for fine folk, and being a witcher, you know how changeable fine folk are."

"All-too-well," replied the witcher tersely.

"So, if any of those fine-folk have a problem with you, tell me. I'll give them a bollocking for you, so that you won't take an insult to drawn blades. Understand? Ey?"

"Mhm. I understand."

"Good, now sit your arse down and have some stew while I prepare your room."

Harry smiled, but complied, as the innkeep puttered over to a pot of goat stew cooking over the fireplace, and ladled out a generous portion for the witcher. She came back over to Harry and set the bowl down on his table, before bustling off to prepare his room.

For a time, Harry was left alone in the room, dining on the stew of potatoes, carrots, and goat. To most, it would be a simple meal, even a meager one, were it not for the meat, but this was a veritable feast for a man always on the road, hunting for food between towns. So, he endeavoured to enjoy it, until the door at the front of The inn banged open, and voices floated through the entry hall:

"This _is_ him, I can feel it," a feminine voice carried, "and we _must_ stop him before he says his last wish."

"But, Madam, no von has seen him here. I do not think this iz related," another voice said, male heavily accented, favouring the south of the continent. If Harry had to guess, the man hailed from Maecht or Etolia.

"Stop this! I'm going to the University tomorrow, and that's final," the woman said in a tone that brooked no argument; the man grumbled softly, but otherwise remained silent.

Two figures slid into the tavern hall, and stopped dead at the sight of the witcher. Harry paid them little mind and continued eating his meal, waiting for them to come to him. The man seemed ready to retire for the night, but the woman lollygagged. From the sudden pick-up in her heart rate, and the slight increase in breath, it seemed as though her interest had been piqued by the solitary monster slayer:

"Master Witcher," a sweet voice called out, like a songbird heralding the first coming of spring.

Harry looked up, and was taken aback. She had a pale face, like a porcelain carving of some elven queen before the Conjunction, and chestnut-brown hair that fell in lazy curls across feminine shoulders, as well as amber eyes so close to gold that could not have been a natural colour.

Elves were, as a rule, quite beautiful, elven sorceresses, doubly so. Though her beauty may have been enhanced by magic, it was very hard to keep that in mind as the witcher stared dumbly at that particular sorceress.

"You are a witcher, are you not?" she asked, slightly jerking Harry from his reverie.

Feeling a fool, he withdrew into the usual stoic, silent facade most witchers put up, and nodded curtly.

"Of what school, may I ask?" the elf asked, smiling reassuringly.

Harry fished for his bear medallion, and held it out for her to inspect. "Bear School," he answered shortly, making to return it against his chest, but the elf reached out and grasped his hand. Harry stopped, and the sorceress scooped up the roaring bear medallion in one gloved hand. While she inspected the trinket, Harry further inspected her. For a sorceress, she didn't much dress like one. She wore a pearl-adorned, black velvet jacket over a red blouse that was tucked into doeskin breeches, and was completed with high-heeled riding boots.

"You're a Skelliger, then?" the sorceress asked, gaze moving from medallion to witcher.

"No, Temerian, actually," Harry replied, and the elf nodded:

"Ah, yes, of course," she said, "I should have known by the accent. Hermione Granger, by the way," she said, dropping the medallion and putting a dainty hand in Harry's to shake it.

"Harry," the witcher returned shortly.

"No surname?" the elf frowned. Harry blinked, of course he had a surname once, back in that short time that he was the infant son of a Temerian noble. But now he was a witcher, and witchers had no use for family names.

"No family, no family name," the witcher replied, and took another spoonful of stew. Try as he might to ignore it, his forsaken family name floated to the top of Harry's mind.

Hermione's brows knotted together a moment, and then, "Potter, is it?" she asked, smiling serenely.

Harry blinked, and felt a familiar and calming feeling steal through his head. Understanding what was happening, he immediately thought of the dirtiest thing he could, which involved the sorceress nude, and on all fours in front of him. To his credit, Harry refrained from laughing when the sorceress drew back and disgust flitted across her face for a microsecond:

"You shouldn't be so casual about reading people's minds," he said.

Realizing she'd been had, the sorceress shook her head in mock disgust. "And you ought to be ashamed," she teased, taking the joke with far greater humour than Harry expected. "Though, really, it's quite impressive. Most people fall for the trick, and think I'm clairvoyant."

"It's not far away; still magic," replied the witcher.

"True, I suppose," said Hermione, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

Harry looked up. "Well, Hermione. Are you going to introduce us?"

Hermione swiveled on the bench and saw what Harry was looking at: a a large, bulky man with bushy eyebrows, clad in leather armor and carrying a notched sword at his side. He glared at Harry as though the witcher had wronged him personally.

"That's my bodyguard, Viktor," the sorceress said fondly. "A bit overprotective, but he's a gentle giant, I swear."

"Ah, well. Nice to meet you, Viktor," Harry said; the bodyguard didn't answer, instead choosing to continue watching him like a hawk, a hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Harry's hand slid down to the handle of his own steel blade that was propped up against the table.

Hermione noticed. "As it happens, Master Witcher," she said hastily, perhaps in an attempt to calm things before they escalated, "I've been looking for someone to help me with a particular problem, and you have just the skillset."

The sorceress's diversion worked, as Harry was once again focused on her: "Do I, now?"

"Yes, I need you to help me find someone."

Harry blinked. "Can't, uh... your bodyguard help with that one?"

"Unfortunately, no," answered Hermione, "Viktor is an excellent fighter, but not much of a sleuth. I'm told witchers are expert trackers."

"So, you need me to track someone down?"

"In a manner of speaking," the brunette replied evasively. "I need you to track down a murderer. You'll be quite handsomely rewarded."

Harry shook his head. "Nope."

Viktor immediately stepped forward, but was just as quickly stopped by one raised hand from the sorceress. Hermione's eyes flashed with the fervour of a merchant starting a haggling process. "And may I ask why?"

"I'm not a detective; I'm not a private investigator. If you want someone to find a killer, look for one of those two. That's not a witcher's job."

"A witcher's job is to protect humans from monsters, is it not? Can humans not be even greater monsters than your average lakeside drowner?"

"Philosophically, yes," replied Harry, "but you forget a key difference between the two."

"And what's that?" asked the sorceress.

"Killing a drowner nets me five crowns a head; killing a man, no matter how awful, gets me stoned to death at dawn."

Hermione laughed; it was a musical sound that seemed quite appropriate coming from her lips. She soon covered her mouth, as her laughter gave way to soft giggles. "I apologise," she said, "that was uncouth of me."

Harry shrugged. "I don't mind."

"Regardless," said the sorceress, once she had regained her composure, "you needn't worry, as I'm quite sure this search will necessitate your skills as a monster slayer."

"How so?"

"Join me tomorrow morning, no later than nine, and you'll find out," Hermione stood up without waiting for an answer, and nodded to her bodyguard, "Viktor, I'll be retiring for the evening."

Viktor nodded quietly, and let Hermione pass him. Harry watched them go silently, gaze drawn to the sorceresses swaying hips until she turned the corner, leaving the witcher alone.

When the innkeeper came back and announced that Harry's room was ready, the mutant made quick work of the rest of his meal and hurried to his room. He shut the door behind him and faced a modest room cramped with a small bed and a smaller writing desk. Not the most comfortable he'd ever been, but it would do.

Harry sat down on the bed.

It was exactly as the traveling trader had told him half a day's ride out from the town: a sorceress by the name of Hermione had been staying at The Alchemy Inn in Oxenfurt, and she was looking for a witcher, or someone with excellent tracking skills. He'd been aiming to go to Novigrad, but once Harry heard that name, it was impossible for him to stay away from Oxenfurt.

Ilona Laux-Antille, and her elven protege, Hermione. Those names had stuck with Harry over the past ten years, burned into the flesh of his brain. After all, how could one forget the names of the women who saved his life?

"Hermione Granger," he murmured to himself. Obviously, she didn't remember him; saving him was just another day in her life, but it had irrevocably changed the course of his. Part of him had doubted that she was even the same Hermione, but the moment Harry laid eyes on her, he knew she was the one. There was something about her magic, that was familiar, calming, even.

Normally, Harry avoided taking on contracts that didn't specifically mention monsters, and even his original declining of Hermione's offer was to keep up appearances, but he knew he'd not be able to refuse the sorceress's request. Even if he didn't want to, Harry would be up the next day at nine, waiting for the sorceress and her bodyguard to show, that he knew. If nothing else, he wanted to see the woman as she truly was; if she truly was the type to stop and help a wounded witcher, or if something else had been at play that one night all those years ago.

Still, he would help her. Harry was indebted to her, whether the sorceress remembered it or not.

* * *

 **A/N** : Just a short introductory chapter to get into our next arc, "The Last Wish". Aren't I clever with that title?

To answer some questions from last chapter:

 **Blinded in a Bolthole:** Yeah, I suppose I did make Harry age prematurely. I won't lie, it's mostly an oversight. But I also do love the imagery of Harry as an older man having one last great adventure with Geralt and Dandelion, so it'll stay that way. As for the timeline, yeah, it's a little wonky, but I set the chapter in 1251 because I believe "The Witcher" short story takes place after "A Question of Price", in which it's revealed that Pavetta is pregnant with Ciri. Since Ciri is born in 1251, I imagine that "A Question of Price" takes place in 1250, since Pavetta doesn't seem to be that far along and the Belleteyn (when Ciri is believed to be born) is around the end of April. All of this means that Geralt and Dandelion leaving The Temple of Melitele has to take place during at least 1250-51 at the earliest in the timeline.

 **Trifectum:** I don't have a particular date for the next chapter of Morning, but rest assured it's in the works!

And now onto the notes for this chapter:

 **Hermione, the beauty:** Some people might be annoyed that Hermione is described as beautiful in this fic, which is a fair complaint, because she's supposed to be a reasonably pretty girl in HP canon, not some unearthly beauty. But, to those people, I say this takes place in the Witcher world, not the HP one. Hermione is both an elf and a sorceress, which is like winning the beauty lottery, since elves are naturally aesthetically appealing and sorceresses can fix most, if not all, physical blemishes they might have. So, Hermione is pretty, deal with it.

 **The Alchemy Inn** : Still exists in TW3, which might be unrealistic, but hey, maybe Stjepan is the great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Pietr.

 **Potter surname:** Harry is still technically a Potter, because his father was James, but I also think that being forced to undergo the Trial of the Grasses also voids your claim to nobility, so Harry merely goes by Witcher Harry, rather than Witcher Harry Potter. There's obviously the matter of the Potter title, as well as their wealth, which may or may not be the subject of a later story arc.

 **Why doesn't Harry remind Hermione** : ...that he's the one she saved all those years ago? It's mostly that famed witcher caution; he doesn't give anyone more information than he needs to, and he wants to see if Hermione really is the person he's spent the last ten years thinking she was.

 **Harry/Hermione** : I've said that this arc was about a witcher and a sorceress hunting down a djinn. And called it The Last Wish. Yes, the Geralt/Yen parallels are super obvious for a reason.

Thanks for reading,  
Geist.


	6. TLW, Part 2

**Summary** : An sorceress contracts a witcher to capture a djinn, and everyone who has read The Last Wish collectively cringes at my lack of originality.

* * *

THE LAST WISH

* * *

II

* * *

Heels clicked against the floor.

"So you decided to come, then?"

Harry looked up from his porridge and grunted his affirmative at the sorceress. "Mhm. Let's say you've piqued my interest."

"Good," said Hermione, taking a seat at his table and tossing her chestnut hair carelessly over her shoulder. "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist a good, old-fashioned mystery."

Harry shrugged and continued eating. Viktor, the sullen bodyguard who followed the sorceress like a lapdog, came up behind them and towered over the table, lancing Harry with a particularly wicked glare. The innkeep stood by the fire, sending furtive glances over to the trio, and shaking her head, grumbling something about duels and witchers underneath her breath.

"You're not much of a talker, are you?" Hermione inquired softly and patiently, though the way her fingers tapped at the table suggested annoyance.

"You've not met many witchers, have you?" Harry replied.

"You're right, I've not. What of it?"

"If you knew most, you'd think I never shut up."

Hermione laughed again. "Yes, maybe so. In any case, I'll leave you to your breakfast and await you outside. When you're finished, come join us. We'll be in the market square just outside."

The brunette nodded to her bodyguard, and the man nearly imperceptibly tensed up. Harry listened closely and smiled at what he heard, before he returned to his breakfast, and let his new clients leave the old inn. The old woman came by with a pitcher of water as soon as the other two left, and began filling the witcher's cup:

"You ought to be careful," she said knowingly, "sorceresses are the crafty type. Always saying one thing, and meaning another. Much too clever for their own good, they are."

"Why let them stay at your inn, then?"

The woman snorted quietly and patted his calloused hand with her own, wrinkled one. "Because the Alchemy Inn is a small beacon of hope for the lost and wayward. It's a resting stop for freaks, mutants, and oddities, and I wouldn't have it any other way."

Her little speech was met with a raised eyebrow and a darkly amused smirk.

"Oh, alright," said the old woman, "she pays _triple_ the normal rate."

"Ah-hah."

"Don't you go telling her, now."

"Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me."

* * *

Oxenfurt was usually a very lively city come the dawn. It was no surprise that a town built around a university, would be a centre of commerce and culture, and nothing exemplified it more than the town square.

In past visits to the town, Harry had the privilege of seeing the square on a normal day: its harbourside fringes were ringed by stately brick-and-stone buildings that offered everything from armor and jewelery, to medicine and banking services. Ensconced by the buildings, little stalls and kiosks lined the streets: among them were a fishvendor's stall, a tattoo artist, a used bookseller, and many other purveyors of trinkets and fragile bric-a-brac. Coriander, cardamom, and paprika filled the air with a strong, exotic scent, emanating from the stall of a traveling merchant from far-off Ofir, offering spices from his homeland and the neighbouring Zanguebar. Walking through the small bazaar was like traveling half the world over in miniature: people spoke a thousand tongues and brought a million ideas through these streets, yet they were all united in the exchange of ideas, as well as goods.

Today, however, there was a hush over the usual motley crew traversing the streets and alleyways of Oxenfurt's town square and makeshift bazaar. Whatever had occurred at the University the night before had brought the city to a grinding halt. Harry was curious, but privately thankful, as the lack of customers made the sorceress and her defender quite visible as they browsed the bookseller's stall.

Harry fixed the strap of his sword-belt and smiled faintly at the scent of cloves that radiated out from the robe of his armour, which had been washed and dried by the innkeep earlier that morning, before he made his way over to the duo.

Hermione turned and waved pleasantly at the witcher as he came down the slope to meet them, dressed once again in fine riding clothes, rather than a flouncy dress, as he had been told to expect where sorceresses were concerned.

"Master Witcher," she greeted exuberantly once Harry arrived in their company, "are you much of a reader?"

Harry shook his head. "Not unless you consider studying John of Brugge a worthy subject."

Hermione crooked her head, as if in thought: "Ah, yes, the anatomist, am I right? Have you read his bestiary?"

"Ghouls, alghouls, forktails, chimaeras... required reading for a witcher in training. Him, and Brother Adalbert, of course."

"I'm afraid I'm not quite familiar with him."

"You wouldn't be," replied Harry, "it's what we might call... specialised reading. It's mostly a detailing of what monsters are weak to and where they're weak. In other words, it's really only useful to witchers."

"I see," said Hermione, thumbing through a book whose cover read _The Bear Legend_. "Do you read anything outside of bestiaries?"

"Rarely. Don't have the time. Why?"

Hermione shrugged, and set the book down, before indicating that Harry should follow her. "I love books, and reading, and well... most of academia, if I'm to be honest. So, I've read _many_ things, ranging from the common mumming to John of Brugge, as you say. Now, tell me, in all those bestiaries, have you ever come across djinns?"

Harry raised an eyebrow as Hermione led him back up the street in the direction of the university, with Viktor close at their heels, silent and pensive as ever.

"You've not, then?" the sorceress questioned.

"Most witchers don't consider djinns real. Just the ramblings of the disgruntled peasantry," Harry started.

"Well," retorted Hermione, somewhat hotly, "there are those who say that, and they're all fools."

"Yes, they are," Harry replied, nodding.

Hermione blinked. "They are?" she asked.

"Mhm, I've met one. Can't say I'm keen on meeting him, or anyone like him, again."

"Him? I wasn't aware djinns were gendered."

"Ah, he could have been smoke, for all I know; he simply came to me in the form of a man."

The sorceress ran a hand through her chestnut curls as she replied. "Were you his master? Did it grant you three wishes?"

"No, and no," said Harry, "this man certainly had no masters. The woman who had her wish granted by him exchanged something very dear for the wish."

"No master, and the wish was granted as a trade? Are you sure this was a djinn you met?" Hermione questioned, looking very interested.

"That was what the woman who had her wish granted claimed he was."

"I see," said Hermione, and then she spoke no more. They crossed a short bridge that led to the isle where the university was located, passed a statue of a man in deep thought as they entered the courtyard and reached the gate led to the university proper, and were stopped by two sullen, polearm-carrying guards in Redanian-red brigandines.

"Miss Hermione, and Master Viktor," one of the two said, yawning as he spoke, "you two I recognise, but I don't believe I've met your third."

Hermione flashed the man a winning smile. "This is the noble Witcher Harry," she said.

"A witcher, ey?" asked the same guard, in the same, uncaring fashion. "Well, noble Witcher Harry, I don't believe you're allowed on the university's premises without a writ of passage."

"He's with me," said Hermione.

"I understand, Miss Granger," the guard replied, "but I cannot let him through without leave from the Chancellor."

"The Chancellor's dead," the sorceress said, incredulous.

"All the more reason. The Chancellor's only just died under mysterious circumstances, and don't take me wrong, but a sorceress is enough: I'm not sure letting a mutant ghoul-butcher, on top of a mage, through the gate is a smart idea. You know, for the bereaved students, and all."

Harry didn't respond, but was privately amused. This was a daily occurrence for him, and yet, looking at the sorceress, one would have thought he'd been done a great injustice. Her face took on a shade, of volcanic, fury-red, and her normally silky, cascade of curls suddenly seemed bushy and untamed, crackling with some unknown energy. Neither of the guards noticed it, nor did Viktor, but Harry saw it in the split second before the sorceress visibly calmed herself down.

When she had regained her composure, she gave the two guards a sweet smile, but her eyes were spoke murder:

"You will let us through," she said coldly. "You will let us through, and should any students _have a problem_ with it, I shall deal with it forthwith."

It seemed that the two bored guards had finally realised they were dealing with a fully-fledged magic-user, who could turn them into pigs, or render them impotent, or cast any manner of terrible afflictions upon them. Suddenly awake and alert, they half-tripped over themselves in apologetic haste to open the gates.

Viktor let out a small laugh as the doors closed behind them.

Harry nodded at the sorceress. "Thank you for that," he said, deciding it was best to appear grateful.

"I wasn't doing it for you," Hermione snapped back, and immediately shut her eyes, bringing a hand to rub at her temples. "I'm... I'm sorry, Harry. That was unkind of me. They shouldn't treat you that way."

"Don't worry about it; I'm used to it."

"That makes it even worse," she replied, but then shook her head. "Regardless, you're right, we shouldn't worry about, because there's not enough time. We must make haste to the Chancellor's office; they'll be waiting for us there."

"Who will?" asked Harry.

"The Chancellor to be, a superior of mine from Aretuza, the Headmaster at the magical university at Ban Ard, and several members of a Redanian Special Task Force."

Harry whistled low as they passed a few empty, cobble-brick streets of student dormitories and teaching halls alike. "Really rubbing our shoulders with giants, aren't we?"

"Are you suggesting I'm not a giant?" teased the sorceress.

"Apologies, I was speaking for myself: I am but a lowly witcher, who tries to avoid politics," Harry said with good humour.

"Too late to back out now," said Hermione. "You agreed to come, and now you'll see this through."

Harry shrugged, and let Hermione take the lead once more, falling back to just a step ahead of Viktor. He didn't know much about the near-silent man, but it didn't take a clairvoyant to see the bodyguard had no love for the witcher. Though, Harry suspected Viktor's dislike of him had nothing to do with the witcher, at all.

"We're here," Hermione announced suddenly, and Harry saw they'd come to a stop at a tall, pointed building, with a red-brick facade, and a large metal placard nailed next to a cherry-oak door, that read ' _ADMINISTRATION'._ "Come along then," she said, climbing up the steps to the door.

Viktor slid past the witcher and rushed in front of Hermione to hold the door open for her, and Hermione nodded her thanks to the bushy-eyebrowed man, who smiled effusively back at her. He was significantly less enthused at the prospect of doing the same for Harry, though, to his credit, he somehow persevered.

The witcher observed the large, rectangular room they had entered, deeming it to be the bursar's office, judging by the well-protected windows that ringed the walls, which Harry had only ever seen at Vivaldi's Bank in Novigrad.

"Up the stairs," Hermione said, guiding the two men to a functional wooden staircase that creaked and groaned as they made their way to the second floor, to a small sitting area that led down a narrow hallway lined with sturdy doors. "Last one at the end of the hall, Master Witcher."

They bore down on the office at the end of the hallway, and Viktor took great pains to open the door for the sorceress and the witcher, having rushed past both to get to the leaf-shaped handle first. Hermione went in first, and Harry followed behind her into the aftermath of what must have been an earthquake: books lay strewn about the floor, fancy ottomans and chairs were cracked and thrown at the far corners of the office, and the centrepiece desk, a sturdy bit of furniture made from oak and reinforced with steel about the edges, lay split in two. The coup-de-grace, however, was the great splatter of drying blood and gore on what was once a white rear-wall.

In the centre of the chaos, stood three people: a very old woman, a very old man, and a young, blonde-haired man in Redanian-striped armour.

"Hermione," said the aged woman, with a very proud look on her wrinkled face.

"Professor," Hermione greeted back warmly.

"Pish-posh, my dear; I've not been your professor in years," the woman said, waving Hermione off as though she were speaking nonsense. "How's Ilona?"

"Of course, you know Miss Laux-Antille, always on her crusades," said Hermione, somewhat wistfully.

"Ah." nodded the other woman knowingly. "And who do we have here?" she asked, looking pointedly at Viktor and Harry.

"Oh! Where are my manners?" exclaimed Hermione, immediately setting about to introduce her companions: "This is my friend and bodyguard, Viktor Krum, from Etolia. And, here," she continued, pointing from Viktor to Harry, "is Witcher Harry Potter, of the Bear School."

The old man next Hermione's former professor stiffened, and Harry turned to observe him, only to have his attention stolen by the elderly woman, now the picture of stern stoicism. Hermione had been about to introduce the woman and her cohorts, but stopped dead when she stood tall in the witcher's way, nearly reaching his nose, and her brimmed witch's hat blocked his view of everything else. The woman appraised him with a stone-grey stare, and spoke:

"Witcher, yes?" she asked.

Harry nodded, seeing no reason to speak aloud.

"I see," the woman nodded curtly, and moved on to Viktor. Harry would have listened to their conversation, which, judging by the man's shifting and fidgeting, wasn't a comfortable one, but he felt two sets of eyes on him.

The first was Hermione, who gave the witcher a reassuring smile. The second, however, was the old man who stood by the broken desk. A man in ostentatious, royal blue wizard's robes, he was a caricature of every sorcerer Harry had ever heard of: old, wise, with piercing blue eyes hidden behind half-moon glasses, and wearing a grizzled, white beard that ran down to his waist.

Piercing blue met cat-eyed yellow, and the old man was the first to look away.

"Viktor, Witcher Harry," Hermione was saying distantly, pointing from the woman, to the old man, to the young blonde man, "the people you see before you are Minerva McGonagall, current headmistress at Aretuza, Albus Dumbledore, headmaster at the Magical University in Ban Ard, and Neville Longbottom, our liaison from the Redanian Special Task Force, set up by his majesty, King Vestibor."

Before Longbottom could trot up to him, or McGonagall could re-engage the witcher in conversation, Dumbledore reached him first:

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Master Witcher," the old man said genially, though there was some deeper emotion in his eyes that Harry couldn't quite decipher.

"As it is to make yours," replied Harry politely, as expected.

"You're Sirius's boy, aren't you?" asked the old man with a kindly look.

Harry was taken aback. Few knew witchers by name, even fewer knew the man who had raised him practically from birth. "Yes. He's my father. How do you know him?"

"I know him through your biological father, one James Potter."

"How did you-?"

"Miss Granger introduced you as Harry Potter, and I did know a boy by that name, once. A boy whom, under the Law of Surprise, was taken to start his own journey down the Path."

"It seems many people knew my father," Harry said dismissively, "he was quite the man of means."

Hopefully, his uncaring tone and demeanour would warn the other man off; Harry had heard much of his parents over the years, and he had no desire to discuss either of them with anyone. Maybe they were great people, as everyone was so fond of saying, but another man had raised Harry, and thus was infinitely more deserving of the title 'father' than James Potter ever was.

It seemed Dumbledore caught the hint, but took it the wrong way. "He did love you. As did your mother."

"Did they?" Harry asked, and then turned to Hermione. "You said some work needed to be done."

The sorceress, who had been in deep conversation with the Headmistress, faced the witcher. "Oh, yes. As you can tell, this room has had quite the night."

Harry observed the wreckage, "Quite," he said pithily.

"Last night, a whirlwind of activity happened in this office," said Dumbledore, smoothly taking over for the sorceress. "Early this morning, well before the dawn, the Chancellor of the University was found disemboweled, with a slashed throat for good measure."

"Where's the body? I could inspect it," Harry asked.

"At the coroner's hut on the beach, not a quarter mile from the harbour," said McGonagall.

"There's little need, though you're welcome to if you'd like, as I have a quick report from a few short observations I made," Dumbledore said seriously. "The cuts clearly did not come from knives, they were much too jagged and uneven, which leads me to suspect a monster, but those same cuts were not consistent with any monster mentioned in a bestiary, which, if Master Harry does take his time to visit the coroner, he will agree with me on."

"Miss Granger seems to think this is related to a djinn," Harry said, avoiding any dancing around the matter at hand.

The old man nodded. "As do we, Master Harry."

"What makes you so sure of it? Djinn are widely regarded to be legend, nothing more," said Harry, suspicion aroused. Few self-respecting academics, especially ones so decorated as the people who stood before him, would simply accept the existence of a creature that most witchers agreed were mythical.

"I have no doubt in my mind that the creature who attacked this university's Chancellor was a djinn," the old man reiterated.

"I'm glad you have no doubts," the witcher smiled hideously, his patience wearing thin, "I'm asking you: why?"

"Because," the Headmaster, "this djinn, who has murdered our esteemed colleague, belongs to us."

* * *

 **A/N:** Sorry for the short chapter, but this is really the most natural break to lead us into the next part, which will undoubtedly be longer than the first two.

Chapter Notes:

\- Several characters from HP canon are mentioned here, and given their respective stations within the Witcher world; Ilona Laux-Antille, one of the few Witcher-only characters to appear in this fic, was also mentioned again.

 **Aretuza, University of Oxenfurt, Ban Ard** : A clarification for those not very familiar with the schools: Both Aretuza and Ban Ard are technically magic schools, though Aretuza seems to have a focus primarily on young women looking to become sorceresses, while the magical university at Ban Ard is either coed or accepts men only. The University of Oxenfurt, on the other hand, is an actual university in the conventional sense: teaching alchemy, medicine, poetry, and philosophy among others.

 **John of Brugge and Brother Adalbert** : Both have written bestiaries; John of Brugge is noted as being particularly boring (but effective and reliable) by Geralt, Vesemir, and Ciri in Geralt's dream at the beginning of TW3.

Next chapter, Harry investigates the attack, and gets dragged into an adventure that centres around much more than a simple murder.

Thanks for reading,  
Geist.


	7. TLW, Part 3

**Summary** : An sorceress contracts a witcher to capture a djinn, and everyone who has read The Last Wish collectively cringes at my lack of originality.

* * *

THE LAST WISH

* * *

III

* * *

An errant bit of intestine stuck to the wall, which had splattered onto it during the festivities the evening before, captivated Harry. He stared at it for near a full minute, admiring the gossamer-like texture and the pinkish hue on it, left over by the blood, before Hermione interrupted his reverie:

"So, Harry, thoughts?" the sorceress asked, looking about the room. They were alone, the others cleared out not five minutes earlier, including a rather reluctant Viktor.

"Yeah," replied the witcher, "just one, at the moment."

"What is it?"

"What the hell have you gotten me into?"

The chestnut-haired sorceress looked off in another direction, innocently. "I'm afraid I've no idea what you're talking about, Master Witcher."

"I'm sure you don't," said Harry as he squatted to inspect a book that had been cleaved in half. "The head sorcerer at the Magical University in Ban Ard, as well as the headmistress at Aretuza, hires me to track down someone who _stole a lamp_ from them? And then used that lamp to summon a _djinn_ , who then went and butchered the Chancellor at the University of Oxenfurt? I don't like getting involved in politics, and this _reeks_ of politics."

"Yes, I know, all witchers are invariably allergic to politicking; I've read all about your sect and heard about your damned 'neutrality'. Honestly, it's all tosh, anyway," the sorceress huffed dismissively.

"Tosh? Well, that's easy enough to say when people aren't banging at your doors, hoping you'll turn assassin for them."

Hermione crossed her arms and leaned against the shattered doorframe with an expression of long-suffering weariness: "Oh, for pity's sake, stop being paranoid. I wouldn't dream of asking you to _assassinate_ someone."

"It's a short, slippery slope from here to there," quipped the witcher, as he returned to the the gore and blood splattered across one wall and collecting on the floorboards.

"The books tell it true once more," smiled the brown-haired beauty, "you witchers are an ornery lot."

Harry scoffed. "Well it must be true if a sorceress, of all people, tells me so. So, how again, am I supposed to find this lamp?"

"As Professor Dumbledore said, all artifacts kept at the Ban Ard University have tracking charms applied to them, and they can locate these artifacts to within a mile radius. The lamp's signal led us here, and it's still close by, meaning our culprits can't be much farther."

"So, let me get this straight, these people murder a high-ranking member of the University and then remain within a one mile radius of the crime scene?" Harry said doubtfully. "That doesn't seem right."

"Well it's the only lead we have at the moment," sighed the sorceress.

Harry shrugged, and went back to the evidence before him. It was a room that had been in pristine condition before it was savaged last night. That was all visual inspection had gotten him. So, maybe it was time to change tack.

"Hm... do you smell that?" he said after a moment.

"What, blood and rotting organs? No, I'm sure it must be your imagination," intoned Hermione sarcastically.

"Less cheek, if you will, Madam Sorceress; it's neither blood nor organs," Harry said, sniffing the air. "It's more like... rosemary and basil."

"Are you suggesting our djinn moonlights as a chef?"

Harry ignored her, and followed his nose. Witchers, as a result of the numerous mutations they underwent, had keen senses, and as senses went, the nose was among the keenest. Eyes can be deceived in every way, but the nose, the nose never lied. He strode out into the hallway and down the stairs, to where their assorted companions awaited.

"Done already, Master Witcher?" asked McGonagall, eyebrow raised. Harry ignored her, and Hermione, who rushed to catch up with the speeding witcher, apologised profusely for the mutant's perceived slight.

Harry burst out the door and followed his nose down narrow, cobbled streets, past spires and a little cathedral devoted to the adherents of the Eternal Fire, until he found himself at a long drop to the sandy beach below, where he saw two sets of fine, unmarred footprints leading to the shore.

"Well," said Harry, "even if the djinn _was_ the one that murdered the Chancellor, it appears that there were others in the room."

"How do you know?"

"Two sets of prints down below. Two males. That's where the scent goes."

Hermione crossed her arms and fixed the witcher an obstinate look. "I don't know about that," she said dubiously, obviously less trusting of the witcher nose than Harry was.

"Fine." Harry shrugged. "Don't come with me then, if I come back with that lamp, then you're paying for my room and board tonight," he trotted away quickly, only for Hermione to stubbornly keep up with him:

"We shall see where this goes," she said, eyeing the witcher appraisingly.

"Skinflint," he murmured.

"What was that?" the sorceress asked sharply.

"Nothing."

* * *

After a short trip through brambles and bushes, and traversing a sheer cliff-face, the witcher caught up to the sorceress, who had wisely chosen to teleport herself down to the beach below. The waves lapped up at high-tide, washing dangerously close to washing some of the tracks away.

"The tracks disappear into the surf. So, now what?" asked Hermione. Harry looked around, and saw a small beach just sat on the outskirts of the town, a few short dashes away from the Three Little Bells inn.

"Now you teleport us to the other side of the isles, where the main city is," Harry said, pointing across the short bay. "It's the way they would have done it."

"They?"

"The two men who came this way; one of them must have been a sorcerer. I'd imagine it would be pretty difficult to smuggle something out of Ban Ard otherwise. Teleporting would be the quickest way to get to the other side of the isles, and from this angle? At night?" Harry indicated how difficult it would be to see them from the bridge connecting the University to the main isle. "It would also attract the least amount of attention."

Hermione seemed to consider it a moment, then nodded. "Take hold of my arm, Master Witcher," she said, and Harry did so. A sudden, intense feeling of being squeezed through a tube roughly the size of a miniature sewer pipe, and they landed on the other side of the water. Well, Hermione landed, Harry rather tumbled rather gracelessly into the sand.

He spat out a mouthful of grainy stuff.

"It takes a bit of getting used to for first-timers," Hermione said, offering a hand up, "I ended up teleporting about ten metres too high my first time. And I ended up breaking my fool leg."

Harry took the proffered hand and didn't resist when the elfwoman said a few unintelligible words in the Elder tongue, which immediately removed all the dust and sand from the cerulean kaftan the witcher wore under his leather chestpiece.

"Thanks," he said quickly, and, once he received the customary nod from Hermione, the witcher went back to looking for tracks. "Here," he said, pointing to a set of two tracks, both male, "they were walking closer to the shore here, so the tide hasn't come in and gotten rid of them yet. So we can follow them for a while."

"It'll bring us out to a fishing haunt," said Hermione, "there are hundreds of people who walk by there every day."

"Then we'll follow the nose," said Harry, unconcerned, as they began to follow the tracks.

"I'm curious, Master Witcher," said Hermione as they continued following the tracks at an unhurried pace.

"Are you?"

"You claim to avoid politics, do you not?"

"I do."

"I saw you and Professor Dumbledore speaking, hushed and hurriedly. For a man so thoroughly repelled by the idea of statecraft and political maneuvering, it is a surprise to see you so chummy with the man."

"It was hardly chummy," scoffed Harry.

"Really? Surely, it seemed like you knew each other."

"I don't know him," said the witcher, "but he knows me."

"What on earth does that even mean?"

Harry grunted. "You're quite nosy, Miss Granger,"

"Some say it's my best quality," Hermione said all while fluttering her lashes exaggeratedly.

"He knew my father," the witcher said tersely. He had no idea why he told her that, but it merely slipped out, as though he couldn't control himself.

"Wow," nodded Hermione, "for your father and Dumbledore to know each other... he must have been important, indeed. Nor must he have been so dismissive of the state of the world, as you are."

"My father was a Temerian, with a country, a home, and a title; I'm a mutant who kills monsters. I have no need to care for the state of the world," snapped Harry, and he instantly regretted it.

"It seems the books were wrong about one thing," said the sorceress quietly.

"And what's that?" Harry asked, his tone and mood rough.

"You can feel, it seems. Anger, for one."

* * *

The tracks inevitably led to the fishing haunt, and a minute beyond that, to a small shack built in a deserted alcove, just above where the high tide would hit, and five ruffians sat outside it, surrounding a generous slab of hog roasting on a spit. It smelled strongly of Rosemary, garlic, and basil, among other things. Hermione, predictably, wasn't enthused.

"Tell me, Master Witcher: did you bring me all this way to find the lamp, or did you merely think to sniff out brunch for yourself?" she asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"No," deadpanned Harry, matching the sorceress's sarcasm pound-for-pound, "I was so entranced by you I decided we must share lunch together."

"Mm... with a gaggle of cudgel-swinging louts, no less. Quite the romantic you are, Harry Potter."

"It's good of you to be the first to finally notice that."

By then, those cudgel-swinging louts, as Hermione had so candidly described them, took notice of the two interlopers among their party.

"Oi, oi, Denis! Look alive, mate!" one of them, a bearded fellow wearing metal sallet for no reason Harry could fathom, shouted to a bare-chested thug whose face was less a combination of features, and more a collection of disfiguring scars.

Denis, the ugly, scarred man, stood from his rickety chair and faced the two intruders. "Oi, go find somewhere else to have a shag, this here shack is occupied."

"Lovely people," Hermione muttered so only Harry could here, and then spoke up to address the men. "Gentlemen, we're not here for a _shag_. We're here to ask you about the two men who stayed with you earlier."

Instantly, the demeanour of the opposing party shifted. At first, they had been aloof, but amused by the appearance of a well-dressed elf and her sword-bearing paramour, but upon learning that they were looking for two men, they became agitated, just short of hostile.

One of the men, a skinny, rat-faced one with the air of a man likely to start a brawl over a spilled drink, reached to his waist and readied a spiked cudgel in his hands. Harry's own hand wrapped around the familiar handle of his Zerrikanian sabre.

"So you're the ones, then," Denis said, stepping up and throwing his arms forward in a wild and ostentatious greeting. "Welcome!"

"We're the ones?" Hermione asked. "What do you mean?"

The scarred man smiled and grotesque smile. "What I mean, is that we've been offered a lot of money to kill the woman who comes to our shack, asking after two men who had stayed here. And if she had a bodyguard, kill him, too. I took the coin; I needed it. But I'm also a man of my word, and if here you appear, then here it is where you make your own grave."

Denis drew his own weapon, a sharp kopesh, and advanced slowly on the duo. With one quick swipe upward, the sabre was in Harry's hands.

"Should've known," the scarred man said, "she-elf wench is much too fit; she'd never deign to have a round in the hay with _that_ ugly cocksucker."

"Great moments of irony," Harry murmured back to Hermione, "Exhibit A."

The sorceress laughed softly, and placed her arm forward. "Again, gentlemen, I'm going to ask you a series of questions about the men who stayed with you. If you don't want to answer, well, I'll just have to be rough."

A silence fell. Harry gave his companion a sideways look.

 _She does realise what she just implied, right?_

If the sorceress didn't know by then, she learned it right after, when the thuggish coterie broke out into wild peals of laughter. They guffawed and slapped their knees like madmen, and one of them even overturned one of the chairs in his merriment.

"Oh, aye," said one of the lads, "with an arse like that, you can get rough with me anytime, knife-ears—"

There was a flash and a squawk, followed by a wet _whump_ and squelching sound, and the man who had been hounding the sorceress quite suddenly fell to ground, groaning and grunting where he had been jeering and hollering a moment ago. Out from his back, and through quite a gaping hole in his gut, a bloodied canary flapped its wings, and tweeted shrilly at the downed man, before dissipating into golden smoke.

Instantly, the laughter stopped, and two of the thugs ran over to their comrade's side, and wrenched back the hand that he was using to cover the wound:

"Fucking hell, the bloody bird went straight through Cid! Flew right through his bleedin' gut!" the combative, thin man shouted in an altogether unappealing Northern Redanian accent. They all whirled around on Hermione, who dusted her hands and fixed them a smile that Harry thought was much too odious for lips like hers:

"There," she said smugly, "have I received your attention, yet?"

"Aye, you've got my attention, you she-elf cunt," Denis spat, no longer quite as jovial or mocking as he'd been a moment earlier. Harry wondered briefly how much more somber the mercenary would be after he cut off the man's arm.

"Now, you've two options, _dh'oine_ ," the elf said haughtily, in a manner not all like her own, "you can either tell me where those men are, and you can get your little friend to the clinic in the city before he bleeds out, or you can take on a sorceress and a witcher in a fight. Which do you think gives you better odds?"

Harry was privately impressed; the woman could play quite a convincing bigot when she tried. And, it seemed these men responded better to threats than they did to simple conversation, because they all looked to one another, and then moved aside, in seeming acceptance of the sorceress's demands:

"They was camping inside the hut," said Denis, "they've gone now, though. Don't bother asking me where, I don't know."

"The Kestrels!" exclaimed the thin man, jumping into the conversation. "I heard them talking about going to the Kestrel Mountains!"

"Thank you, you gallant gents," Hermione said, and made her way toward the shack. Harry, unlike his companion, wasn't quite ready to let his guard down, so he followed behind, blade still at the ready. When they reached the threshold of the hut, Hermione spoke lower, so only Harry could hear her. "Stay outside, Witcher; I should like to make sure our quarry haven't set any traps for the enterprising pursuer."

Harry nodded and turned right around, marching to the chair that had been overturned in the earlier festivities, and sat heavily on it, where he then placed his sword to rest against his thigh. From his waistbelt, Harry drew the smaller, gutting knife he carried and immediately attacked a piece of the hog.

The four standing mercenaries stared at the witcher as he proceeded to steal their food.

Harry eventually looked up, and cocked his head in mock-confusion. "Why are you lot still here? The clinic's that way," he jabbed his knife, on which a piece of pork belly was stabbed, in the direction of the town proper. "Reckon you'll not be able to do anything for him here, unless you'd like me to melt his insides with a witcher's potion."

As though suddenly remembering one of their men had been gored by an errant, insane canary, the remaining four picked up the bloodied lad and hoofed toward the fishing pier that would take them to the clinic, and hopefully to a sorcerer who was in a much more merciful mood than Hermione had been.

"Master Witcher!" Hermione's voice called from within the hut. "It's safe! You can come in now."

Harry speared the last pit of loin, and finished fashioning himself a makeshift roast pork kebab, before he went through the door himself. Inside, the shack was like most ordinary shacks, built of wood that was once strong and sturdy, but had been weakened by the years of ocean spray. Various useless knick-knacks littered the stone floor, from shovels and hoes to fishing nets, and even an iron anchor that hadn't seen use in at least half a century. The real centrepiece of the shack, and what Hermione was standing over, was a small, un-sanded work table, atop which was an intricately carved, golden lamp, and what looked to be a gnarled wand sat beside it.

Hermione looked up, preparing to launch into some speech, but stopped short at the sight of the witcher's ill-gotten gains. "Did you steal their food?"

"Hey, it's a free meal, and they had better things to do." Harry shrugged.

The sorceress shook her head despairingly. "So I was right, then. You _did_ come here for a meal."

"Let's call it a happy accident," said Harry, through a full mouth. "Looks like you've found the lamp."

The brunette gazed down at the little thing, and sighed. "Unfortunately, that's all it is, now."

"What do you mean, all it is?"

"I mean this is just a lamp. No djinn, no magic. Look at your medallion. Is it vibrating?"

"Well," Harry started, fiddling with the bear sigil round his neck, "uh, no. It's not."

"Because there's neither monsters nor active magic nearby. There's nothing in this room but us, an anchor, and a lamp."

"And you're sure that's the right lamp?"

"Yes, I am. I've seen it before, with my own eyes."

"So, what does it mean?"

"Normally," Hermione began, "it would mean that our thieves are bleeding hearts who set the djinn free, and, in doing so, probably ended up getting themselves killed. Djinn are notorious ingrates."

"But?"

Hermione nodded to the side, her curls bouncing lazily toward the twisted, curving wand that sat beside her. "Sixteen-inches. Made of yew, with a core of unicorn hair. Quite well made."

"What, the wand?"

"Rod, Harry, it's a rod," said Hermione, "an binding rod, to be exact."

"Meaning?"

"Well!" Hermione exclaimed, seemingly instantly in her natural state. "Now, you see, magic doesn't necessarily need a focal point to be used, but as Stürgmann tells us in _Intermediate Practicum of Magicka_ , a staff, rod, or wand, as you say, can be infinitely useful in amplifying power. What a binding rod does is take the... and you're not listening, are you?"

"No," said Harry, happily munching on his kebab. "Can you explain it in layman's terms?"

"This rod is specifically made to unseal and seal things from out of and into objects, respectively, especially in cases of extremely powerful spirits, such as the djinn," said the sorceress dully.

"So then, it's a possibility..."

"...That the thieves knew that the lamp was being tracked and unbound the djinn, only to seal it within their own receptacle, and thus, throw us off their scent. Yes, Master Witcher, that is a possibility."

"Well, the runty bloke said they were headed to the Kestrels," Harry said.

Hermione shook her head. "Hardly great evidence. You of all people should understand just how big that mountain range is."

"It continues for hundreds of miles."

"Yes, and that's not exactly a small area." Hermione sighed again. "Alright. Let's take back what we've found. After we've consulted with the Professors and our Redanian liaison, we'll be able to plan out our next move."

* * *

Viktor awaited outside the building the Chancellor had been murdered in, and perked up the moment he saw Harry and Hermione return by way of portal, and quickly ushered the two inside as he doted on the sorceress and pointedly ignored the witcher.

Once inside, Dumbledore was the first to speak. "Have you any news?"

Harry nodded and pointed over to Hermione, who reached into her pocket and pulled out a miniaturised version of the lamp she and Harry had found. Grasping it by its tiny handle, she uttered a few words and the lamp returned to the size at which they'd found it.

"Here it is," said Hermione.

"That looks like the one that went missing, but, Albus, am I right in saying you shouldn't be able to use spells on the lamp," McGonagall started doubtfully to the Headmaster of the Ban Ard University, "not while a djinn is inside it, at least?"

"You are correct, Minerva," Dumbledore answered, before nodding gravely to Hermione. "Are we to assume that this means...?"

"Yes," the brunette said, "the djinn was unbound from the lamp and likely placed into another receptacle, to lose the tracking charm placed onto our lamp."

"Give it to me," ordered the old man softly, and Hermione quickly complied, handing it off to the man as though it were a priceless artifact from a bygone age. The Headmaster inspected the lamp.

"Also, we found this," said Hermione, drawing the binding rod from the belt at her waist and brandishing it in front of their compatriots. There was the light of recognition in Dumbledore's eyes when he saw the gnarled wand:

"Ah, yes. It's as I suspected," he said cryptically.

"As you suspected?" McGonagall questioned, taking off her witch's hat, revealing raven hair that was starting to grey. It only then occurred to Harry that this Headmistress was like no other sorceress he'd ever seen, for the sheer fact that she was aged. He made a mental note to ask Hermione about it, later.

"I see why our thieves came here," said Dumbledore. "The best place to hide a secret to a dangerous item, and the lamp of a djinn is most certainly dangerous, is generally where no one would think to look, or so I thought. Some years ago, I asked Cornelius, that is, Chancellor Fudge, to hold on to an binding rod I had created expressly for the purpose of sealing this djinn. We told no one else of this arrangement, so, I assumed should anyone come looking for the djinn, they would never be able to use it unless they created their own."

"So, Chancellor Fudge hid it in his office?" Harry interrupted.

"What?" the old man asked.

"I followed the tracks of the thieves. They were only ever in the Chancellor's office," said Harry.

"Ah, yes, that is troubling," Dumbledore lifting up his spectacles to rub at the bridge of his nose.

"What's troubling?" Neville asked; the others in the room nodded their own confusion at the unspoken conversation between witcher and sorcerer.

"If what the Headmaster says about his conversation with the Chancellor is true, then Chancellor Fudge would have known to keep the rod in a safe place, hidden away from any prying eyes. Yet, if the thieves never left the office, it suggests that Fudge left the rod in there. Meaning..."

"...Meaning," interrupted Dumbledore genially, "I had judged Cornelius to not be the careless type. It appears, through the witcher's investigation, that I was wrong to believe such a thing."

Harry bit his tongue; he had an entirely different hypothesis, but would hold back for now.

"Still, Cornelius is dead, through a stolen artifact from my university, and I must take responsibility for that," Dumbledore said, "is there any other news. Any at all, that might help us track the thieves?"

"The Kestrels," Hermione said. "The thieves hired several mercenaries to 'take care' of anyone who would come round asking questions. They thought better of it when they realised they'd have to 'take care' of a sorceress and a witcher. One of them told us that the thieves were making their way toward the Kestrel Mountains."

Neville grimaced from behind Dumbledore. "That mountain range spans hundreds of miles. It's better than nothing, I suppose, but not much more than that."

"Perhaps it would be wise to petition King Vestibor for a few more men?" Hermione suggested.

"I could try," said the blond man, "but it would be difficult to sanction. The Kestrels are a border with Kaedwen, and they're quite touchy about their sovereignty; I'm not sure the King would be comfortable sending men to the borderlands in the company of sorcerers from a Kaedweni-allied University."

"Then maybe I shall petition King Dagread for a few of the Unicorns' men?" asked Dumbledore. "Perhaps it will go a long way to easing Vestibor's fears if this is to be seen as a joint mission?"

The Redanian soldier seemed to think it over and gave a tentative nod. "I can... push the idea forward. I cannot guarantee His Grace will accept your offer, however. If you have questions concerning why," he said, giving a not-so-surreptitious look to those in their company, "we can discuss these matters in private."

"I see, then let us find a quiet place to have a chat, shall we, Master Longbottom?" Dumbledore asked.

Harry took that as his cue to leave, and slouched out the door, with Hermione and Viktor following close behind.

"So, Miss Granger," said the Witcher.

"Yes?" Hermione asked as soon as she caught stride with him.

"What now?"

"Now, Professor Dumbledore will likely head to Ard Carraigh and petition King Dagread for several of the best trackers in the Kaedweni army, and presumably Longbottom will ride for Tretogor in hopes of convincing King Vestibor to do the same," Hermione said, though her tone sounded pensive. "I'd be surprised if the order is given, on either side, however."

Viktor scrunched his bushy brows. "'Vy do you think that?"

"It's an open secret amongst the Brotherhood of Sorcerers that Redania's relations with its neighbours are souring. Temeria has been encroaching on the Gustfields for quite some time..."

"What?" laughed Harry, "are they not satisfied with Velen, the _pearl of Temeria_?"

Even Viktor could not hold back a smile at that.

"And there have been several border skirmishes over the Kestrels over the past few years, to determine who the mountain range belongs to," Hermione continued smoothly, as if she'd never been interrupted at all.

"Why? The mountains are barely hospitable as it is. Who would even want it?"

Hermione shrugged. "I'll never claim to understand the minds of monarchs; though I suspect it's nothing more than peacocking. Still, despite how ridiculous the conflict is, it is still a conflict: one of the Sages who gave counsel to the Brotherhood predicts there will be war in no less than five years' time, and numerous men and boys will die, due to kingly vainglory."

"So it is likely then," Viktor said, "that these... Kings will not cooperate vith each other?"

"Very likely," said Hermione, as they stopped over the bridge connecting the main town with the University.

"So, like I said: what now?" Harry asked.

"Even aided by magic, it'll still be at least few days, perhaps even a week, before we can assemble a coalition large enough to effectively comb the Kestrels, if the monarchs agree to this mission at all. So, for now, Master Witcher, we wait."

Harry sighed. "I didn't expect to be side-tracked in Oxenfurt for so long."

"You should stop complaining, Harry," chided the sorceress, playfully wagging a finger, "I've already said you'd be handsomely compensated."

"It's not the gold that worries me, it's the staying still in one city."

Hermione's lips curved upward into a smile. "I didn't say we had to stay in Oxenfurt."

Harry stopped, and cocked an eyebrow. "Where do you have in mind?"

"There's a lovely town two days ride out from here, currently being besieged by a wyvern," the sorceress said. "The Duke petitioned me to come help some days ago, and I think it's my happy luck to have run into a Witcher. Now, we could take a portal there and be done in an afternoon, but if we take the slow route, we could be there and back before week's end."

Harry smirked; Sirius often told him to avoid sorcerers and sorceresses like the plague, because they only ever caused trouble for the average witcher, but he was suddenly becoming quite fond of this one: "Ah, Sorceress, you know the way to a man's heart."

"I do not think ve should leave Oxenfurt. 'Vat if Dumblydore or Ne-ville come back before ve do?" Viktor voiced his concerns, doubtful.

Hermione shrugged. "I shall give you my looking glass, then. You can stay here, and if the party does start before we've arrived back, you can contact me and I'll be sure to drag the Witcher back with me posthaste."

That particular option seemed to enthuse Viktor even less, but, nevertheless he nodded. "Fine. I shall stay. Be careful."

"I always am, Viktor," Hermione smiled reassuringly. "Harry, have you a horse?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"Well, I should very much like to see a witcher in his natural element, and we're on a strict schedule, so we can't afford to be late. So, we shall have to remedy your lack of steed before we leave, correct?" the sorceress said, and scampered ahead, in the direction of the town square, and the horse stables beyond the gate.

* * *

 **A/N:** I believe the next chapter will be the last (and longest) part to the 'The Last Wish', then we'll return for a chapter with Geralt, Harry, and Dandelion. After all of that, we'll move on to the next arc, which again features Ron, and a little guy named Dobby.

Chapter Notes:

\- I know a lot of HP characters have been introduced in this arc compared to The Lesser Kindness, which was more or less just Harry and Ron, but Denis the cunt mercenary bears no relation whatsoever to Dennis Creevey, from HP canon.

\- Another character from the Witcher half of crossover was alluded to in the conversation Harry, Hermione, and Viktor had on the bridge; this character may or may not make an appearance in the next arc.

\- Brotherhood of Sorcerers: This is more clarification for those who have only played the games. The Brotherhood of Sorcerers was the organisation of assorted mages of the Northern Kingdoms, prior to their overthrowing by the Lodge of Sorceresses during the Thanedd Coup, a significant event in the books. Despite the name, The Brotherhood of Sorcerers accepted both male and female mages, while The Lodge accepts only sorceresses.

\- Seven Years' War: The political strife between Redania, Temeria, and Kaedwen, that Hermione was referring to is alluding to this particular war. Not much is really known about the war, beside that it took seven years to run its course, and that Redania lost a significant amount of land (most notably losing Novigrad to Temeria), until Radovid III, the Bold (not to be confused with Radovid V, the Stern, who is the witch-hunting Radovid most are familiar with), restores the original borders some years later.

Thanks for reading,  
Geist.


	8. TLW, Part 4

**Summary** : An sorceress contracts a witcher to capture a djinn, and everyone who has read The Last Wish collectively cringes at my lack of originality.

* * *

THE LAST WISH

* * *

IV

* * *

The spire of the University poked out above the gently sloping hill, and Sleipnir whickered softly, perhaps recognising his home. Harry leaned forward and patted the stallion on the neck reassuringly, and the midnight black horse gently leaned into his touch as he did so.

"Looks like someone's glad to be home," Hermione said, observing them from atop her own steed, a chestnut mare.

Harry nodded back. "He might not be especially fond of the witcher's lifestyle if he's this attached to a place."

"I'm sure he'll adapt," the sorceress replied, waving a hand dismissively. "After all, he was well-behaved throughout our trip North, and he'll get even more experience when we head for the Kestrels."

"Speaking of which, where are we on that?"

Hermione smiled faintly. "Well, we can't fault Longbottom and Professor Dumbledore for not trying. Viktor tells me there's been a flurry of back-and-forth between the Redanian and Kaedweni royal courts. It's a possibility, even, that both kings have been in contact with each other by way of megascope."

"The Professor's doing?"

"Naturally," the brunette nodding, pulling at her reigns so that her mare eased up on a stone bridge that crossed over a shallow stream. "Kaedwen has sent a delegation of their finest soldiers, and Redania is apparently sending Longbottom back from Tretogor with a manageable unit."

Harry observed the walls of Oxenfurt, fast coming upon them, and he took some small measure of pleasure in the aromas of spices and food that permeated the air just beyond the gate. Today, a week after when he had first arrived, the town square and its bazaar would be packed.

The week had been productive, to say the least. Not including her semi-frequent bouts of academic curiosity concerning witchers, Hermione was a courteous, unobtrusive traveling companion, and remained a top-notch conversation partner for the long roads traversed by day. For the entire week, she had deigned to live as he did when on the road, claiming that while reading books were nice, she would be a fool not to opt for the real experience when traveling with a witcher.

This, of course, entailed hunting for food, bathing in streams, and sleeping under the stars. To her credit, the sorceress kept any complaints to a minimum.

Once they'd reached the town Hermione had mentioned, a charming little hamlet of thatched roofs and half-timber and brick homes, she'd proved to be an even greater help. The Ealdorman, an ostentatious man who referred to himself as 'The Duke', gave the Harry a witcher's contract on a wyvern worth double his normal rate, due almost entirely to him being in the company of 'the great woman'.

The sorceress herself wanted no thanks for securing Harry a better contract, but wanted only the compensation of being allowed to see the witcher work his craft. Harry agreed, and like so, they were soon back on the road, with heavy pouches and high spirits.

"What numbers are we looking at here?" Harry asked Hermione, who seemed to be as enraptured with the city as the witcher was. "Obviously, it's difficult to effectively comb the mountains in small numbers, but I doubt we want to start a caravan."

"Professor McGonagall understands that there should be no more than ten representatives from either delegation. If we include personnel associated with the University, and ourselves, we should be no more than thirty."

They finally approached the grey brick wall surrounding Oxenfurt's landlocked side, and were stopped by two guards in Redanian striped hauberks. Harry hid a smile, remembering his first meeting with apathetic guards when in the company of Hermione.

"Halt!" shouted one of them, who wore a wholly ridiculous, curled moustache. "State your business."

"Sorceress Hermione Granger and Witcher Harry Potter. We have business at the University."

The guard squinted back. "Do you, now?" he asked suspiciously. "Henrik, hand me the list."

"Aye," a second, younger guard nodded, and hobbled over to crate on which a few sheafs of parchment lay unattended. He struggled mightily to grasp the sheets in his gauntleted hands, and succeeded, after a valiant effort. He trotted back to hand the papers over to the first guard, who looked over them with unnatural care.

By the way his moustache twitched, it appeared he read something he didn't like. He looked from the papers, up to Harry and Hermione, down at the paper again, and sighed as he turned to the gate door and rapped heavily on it:

"Aye, Lukas, open the gates," he called, "these ones are expected up at the University."

"Aye!" shouted another from behind the gate; and with a cacophony of wooden groans, accompanied by the backing vocals of jangling metallic chains, the gate slowly opened to welcome the two riders and their steeds.

They entered the town, and laid bare before them were the naked wonders of the world in full-force. Today, the spices were in full use, as grills were set up and cast-iron pots were left to simmer over controlled fires. Furthermore, the bookseller had a gaggle of customers; the bank was booming with business; and even the Ofieri merchant, with his expensive jewels and precious metals, had managed to entice a student of the university into buying a pair of gold earrings for his chosen lady love.

Harry looked at it all longingly, but sighed as he turned his horse in the other direction, which would ring the edge of the town but eventually lead him to the bridge connecting the university to the town proper.

It only took Harry a few seconds to realise he was trotting alone. Confused, he turned and spotted Hermione about to turn away toward the bazaar:

"Master Witcher," she called, "Viktor hasn't yet gone to the University; perhaps I should go check on him, and bring him with?"

Harry shrugged. "Sure," he said, "no bother."

The brunette smiled, and nodded gratefully. "Thank you. We'll meet you there, then?"

"Of course. I'll see you there."

* * *

He stood in an antechamber filled with unfamiliar faces, and the witcher felt distinctly ridiculous being there without Hermione at his side. The Redanian soldiers, a group of about four, stern-faced men, stood off to one-corner and conversed quietly among themselves. They eyed the mutant with some distrust, but Harry didn't mind them much; he was used to simple distrust.

It was the sorcerers who managed to spark his ire. There were several of them, some men, some women, delegates from Aretuza and Ban Ard alike, but they all sneered at him as though he was an ant to be crushed.

Sirius had mentioned it more than several times: the common man feared a witcher, but the common sorcerer despised a witcher. And while it seemed his elven companion was a notable exception, it appeared these people were not.

So, ultimately, Harry found himself standing in one corner of the small meeting room, a few steps from a table of sweets and other refreshments, and as far away from the baleful stares as possible.

It didn't last long.

"Master Witcher!" someone called out, in the direction of the door to the room. Harry looked up to see Neville Longbottom waving to him.

"Hello, sir," the witcher greeted back neutrally, but politely.

"Am I to understand that you'll join us for the expedition to the Kestrels, then?" the soldier asked.

Harry nodded. "Well, I'm here, aren't I?"

"Of course, of course," the other man clapped him on the back, "I won't lie and say I'm not excited to work with you; from what I've heard, witchers are some of the best trackers on the continent. If anyone can sniff out these thieves, it'll be you."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"No need, just stating facts."

"But, speaking of tracking, how are we going about all of this? Surely you're not thinking of having one of the sorcerers open a portal to a mountaintop?"

Neville shook his head and laughed. "Heavens no, Master Witcher! It wouldn't be safe to teleport a group of this size anywhere but the end of the hallway, as I'm sure you know. We'll be riding by day to Novigrad, and Roggeveen beyond to the borderlands. There and beyond, we'll be asking around to see if we can pick up a trail, and then we'll meet with our scouts in Ghelibol. It's not the most well-planned operation I've been in, but intel is scarce and the mages aren't too keen on giving us any more than they think we need, so what we know is what we get."

"That might take days. The thieves could be gone by then," said the witcher.

"Well, it helps, then, that we've a master tracker on our side, then, doesn't it?" Neville grinned. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go speak with men before everyone arrives."

The blond soldier bade his farewell and trotted over to the sullen-faced Redanians in the corner, all of whom had been ignoring everyone up until now. Harry returned to his own particular corner of the antechamber, and resumed his bout of people-watching, waiting for Hermione and Viktor to come bursting through the door. He didn't have to wait long.

There wasn't a bang, nor did the sorceress and her bodyguard come bursting through; the heavy wooden door opened softly, as though it were made from cheap plywood rather than sturdy oak. Hermione walked in first wearing a white blouse under her black-velvet jacket, and the heels of her customary riding boots, in which lambskin breeches were tucked, clicked softly against chiseled stone tiles. Viktor followed behind, draped in furs and treated leather, looking completely out of place in the spring warmth, though he seemed not to notice the heat.

The sorceress looked around, and broke out into a smile when she saw the witcher; she walked over, Viktor tailing her every step:

"Fancy meeting you here," she said, seeming to ignore the fact they'd only split up a few minutes earlier.

Harry nodded, but said nothing, as Neville cleared his throat loudly in the centre of the room:

"Well, I assume we're all here, then?" he asked the three separate groups, all of whom shrugged and murmured amongst themselves. "I'll, er, take that as a yes," the soldier said.

One of the sorcerers, a regal-looking man with long, silver-blond hair and a permanent sneer etched into his face, spoke up: "Longbottom," he said, with a posh Novigradian accent that carried the slightest touch of Kaedweni, "I see we're to make our way toward the Kestrels with a Kaedweni troop, yet here I only see Redanians, our contemporaries from Aretuza, and," he glared at Harry to the side, "a _mutant_."

Longbottom laughed nervously. "Well, Master Malfoy, you of all people should be familiar with the plan: we'll travel in groups through Novigrad, Roggeveen and Ghelibol, where we'll then meet the Kaedweni soldiers and Headmaster Dumbledore along the Lutonski Road to Ard Carraigh."

"He seems rather pushy," whispered Harry to Hermione, "who is he?"

"That," Hermione said with a distasteful look, "is Lucius Malfoy. A thoroughly repellent man, but he is an excellent sorcerer, and has personal ties with King Vestibor. It's likely the King has sent him to act as his own personal mage; Vestibor trusts him more than he ever would Dumbledore or McGonagall, because..."

"Because the Dumbledore's University is in Kaedwen, and Aretuza is worryingly close to Gors Velen in Temeria. I can see why Vestibor would want his own man in among the mages," Harry finised for her.

"Yes, I see it, too. He vould not vant possible Temerian-allied sorceresses and Kaedven-allied sorcerers stomping about those mountains with little oversight," Viktor said, agreeing with Harry for what felt like the first time to the witcher.

"So, does everyone understand the plan?" Neville asked, having continued speaking whilst the trio had their own conversation. When he received muted nods and murmurs of assent, he smiled and clapped two gloved hands together: "Wonderful! We'd like set out for Novigrad as soon as possible, so I will give each of you an hour to prepare, and then we'll set out from the Guildenstern Bridge? Is that clear?"

More nods, and a clipped "Yes, Longbottom, we understand," from Malfoy.

"Good," said the Redanian soldier, "I'll see you all then. Men?" he called out to the other soldiers, all of whom stood ramrod straight when he spoke. "Come along, there's work to be done before we set out."

He turned rigidly and marched out; the other Redanians followed behind in single-file, marching as stiffly as their commander. The sorcerers were the next to go, in a sea of pompous strutting. Hermione and Viktor went after, with no affectations to their gait at all. And, lastly, the witcher slouched out from behind them all.

* * *

An hour passed by quickly, and Harry soon found himself waiting with Hermione and Viktor on the other end of the Guildenstern Bridge, just outside Oxenfurt's gates. Sleipnir snorted softly, seemingly annoyed with standing still for so long, so Harry patted the crest of his head soothingly.

On the other side of the sorceress and Viktor was Neville and his troop, all seated on the backs of hardy Redanian stock, ranging from bay, to chestnut, to dapple grey. He was leaned over and in hushed concentration with Hermione, whose golden-brown eyes sparkled with mirth at something the soldier said. Harry swore he could see the fur draped over Viktor's shoulder visibly bristle.

It was all well and good, because it meant that Viktor's muted hostility would no longer be directed solely at the witcher.

 _What a chore, to be in love with a woman who doesn't love you back,_ Harry thought.

Part of him even pitied the man, because Harry could see what the bodyguard found so enthralling about the sorceress, beyond simple kindness and inhuman beauty. Just as she had been studying the ways of a witcher on their short trip north, the witcher also had been observing her. Hermione Granger was an enigma: a sorceress who wouldn't turn away a witcher, who would save the life of a man she didn't know, and would even deign to humble herself to living as a vagrant for a time, so long as she might learn something from it. She was someone who accepted everyone, and, thus, no one would ever capture her heart.

It truly must have been painful to love someone like that. So Harry paid little mind to Viktor's baleful glares, and sharp, one-lined rebukes, because in the end, the Southerner suffered more from staying with Hermione than Harry ever did when bearing an insult from the man.

Harry turned away and saw the delegation from Aretuza and Ban Ard off in their own circle, speaking amongst themselves about spellcraft and possible ways to prevent a djinn from attacking whilst attempting to us a binding rod.

"Isn't everyone here?" Viktor suddenly asked. "Vat are ve vaiting for?"

"Lucius Malfoy, it seems," Neville responded quickly.

"Of course," Hermione said with an attractive little scoff, "Master Malfoy has quite a flexible definition of what an hour entails."

"I suppose we can't just leave without him?" Harry asked, somewhat hopefully.

"I'd rather not lose my head over this, thanks," said Neville with no small amount of sarcasm.

So, they waited. And waited. And waited some more, until the missing sorcerer sauntered over the bridge on a purest white stallion a full half-hour after they had been originally scheduled to leave, and smirked at the gathered lot:

"Oh, I do apologise," he said insincerely, "I completely lost track of the time. I trust you weren't waiting too long?"

"No," said Longbottom, through gritted teeth, "not long at all, Master Malfoy. But let's be on our way; we are a little behind schedule, and need to make up that time, as I want to be in Novigrad's walls by nightfall."

After a quick nod of agreement from the latecomer, they rode; not at a breakneck speed, but quick enough to cover the forty miles from Oxenfurt to Novigrad in one day. The clop of hooves went mostly unbroken, but for a scant few conversations with Hermione, and fewer attempted with a mostly unresponsive Viktor, until dusk had fallen and the great walls surrounding Novigrad loomed in the distance, with pyres of the Eternal Flame alighting Temple Isle even further beyond.

They entered through the Glory Gate, skirting round the edges of the Farcorners, and broke into several parties for the night: Neville and the soldiers broke in one direction toward the docks, and the sorcerers immediately made for the glamour of Temple Isle, leaving the trio stranded in a small square, looking for a place to stay the night.

"It seems everyone else has already arranged for lodging tonight," said Hermione, "have you any ideas on where to go?"

"This is the biggest city in the known world. There are thirty inns and taverns in this city, at least _one_ of them must have a few vacancies," said Harry, shrugging.

Viktor nodded. "Yes, that's true, but 'ver are these inns?"

The quiet debate was suddenly broken by a loud jingle. "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" the three turned to see a bellman crying out in a small square not fifty paces from them. "Come to The Kingfisher tonight to hear the lovely, the talented, Anariette perform her many ballads and songs! Hear ye, she is a vision of beauty, and the very voice of the Eternal Fire come to earth!"

A slow, nostalgic smile spread across the witcher's face.

"What are you grinning like a fool for?" asked Hermione.

Harry barked out a laugh. "I'm grinning like a fool, as you say, because I've found us a place to stay. We're going to The Kingfisher, Madam Sorceress."

* * *

They entered just as the lovely, talented Anariette was on her last ballad, and took their seats in a forgotten corner of the smoke-filled ground floor as she crooned out the fourth of many quatrains. Most of her written verse, Harry remembered, were songs of yore and epics about heroes long dead. Yet, Anariette always finished any major appearance with a contemporary long-form poem.

He had no need to listen to the lyrics, though Hermione seemed well-captivated by it nearly immediately (and Viktor simply looked bemused), as the witcher knew the story by rote. A lovely, talented young bard heads south from her home in Vengerberg to Touissant, to perform for the knightly feasts and tournaments, only to attract unwanted attention from a ghastly admirer.

"I've know of this ballad," whispered Hermione excitedly, " _The Perfect Kiss_ , is it? I've been told it's _magnificent_."

Viktor, a man of action rather than rhymes and couplets, hardly seemed as impressed:

"Vat is this song about?" asked the bodyguard, "her... Nordling tongue is too quick for me; I cannot understand it vell."

"It's about a woman who-" he was quickly shushed by Hermione, who scooted away and leaned in to listen. To not disturb the sorceress, Harry leaned in, and whispered: "it's about a woman, a bard, who travels to another country and attracts the attention of an elder vampire."

"Vampire," repeated Viktor.

"You know: alps, bruxae, katakans?"

"Ah, I see. So this poem is about how the vampire kills this bard?"

"Not really," said Harry, "it's more about the heroine escaping the vampire's clutches, with some help from a witcher."

" _He of rage, and silver, and steel came to that town  
A man who only for coin would save thee from arrows and slings  
Agreed to rescue the girl for a number of kingly crowns  
While secretly plotting how best to make her sing_"

Anariette's voice hummed saucily from the stage, and a dry chuckle went up through the room, all aware of the legends concerning the witcher predilection for perversion. Even Hermione smiled coyly at the black-haired witcher, who shrugged in response:

"She does really make me out to be a bastard in the first few stanzas, that she does," he murmured lowly.

Hermione leaned over and squinted. " _The Perfect Kiss_ is about _you_?"

"And her as well. You needn't sound so surprised."

"Forgive me, I'm not trying to insult, Harry, it's just..."

"Vy is it so bad?" interrupted Viktor. "You help for coin and the chance to hear a bard a sing. I do not see the problem."

Harry stopped dead, and searched the bodyguard's genuinely clueless and equally curious expression; he then looked past Viktor to Hermione, who hid her giggles behind a hand:

"Er..." he said lamely, "when she says sing, she doesn't actually mean _singing_."

"Then vat does she mean?" asked the bushy-eyebrowed man.

"Sex, Viktor," deadpanned Hermione, "she means sex."

"Oh," was all the sorceress's bodyguard said as his pale cheeks tinged with colour. Hermione smiled fondly at the man and then turned her attention back to the show, while Harry turned his attention on the bard.

She was as beautiful as he remembered, ever the woman of contrasts. Her long, luxuriant hair was the colour of a raging fire, and her eyes were almond-shaped and icy. Her skin was a pale and unblemished white, and her lips were red and succulent, like fresh strawberries dipped in cream. She was the type that smiled effusively and persistently, but she wore a black velvet frock, as though attending a funeral.

And, Harry decided after a full minute of unbiased, academic observation, that dress did wonders for her chest.

Truthfully, it didn't take much to see she was radiant, and it took even less to see why she had a following wherever she went. It was because she could match any sorceress's beauty, and then some, and because, as was so rare in her profession, she was well and truly _talented_. Simply, she was as close to natural perfection as any woman could hope to be.

Harry finally caught the bard's eye after several minutes of hungry staring, and she winked back, surreptitiously, so that anyone but him might think it a trick of the eyes or the false play of light. She strummed her lute with practised, nimble fingers, in a little ditty that held special meaning between the two of them.

"She's seen us," Harry whispered to the other two, "she'll come meet us after the performance."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "How do you know? She hasn't even looked this way."

"You ought to pay more attention, Miss Granger," said Harry dryly. "Just wait, she'll come by soon."

And so they waited, passing the time being regaled by the bard's account of her adventure in Toussaint. It was an admirably faithful adaptation, from the witcher's initial reluctance to take the contract, to their brainstorming together on how to defeat the bard's unwanted suitor, to a Knight Errant's foolhardy plan to lure out the vampire by slashing his own wrists. Of course, there was one major divergence, but Harry knew she'd never include _that_ in her ballad.

And there was the fact that the poem ended with the two sharing a kiss on some balcony in a Toussaint villa. The truth was hardly so clean, but Harry supposed it made for a better fairy tale than the fact that he and the bard did end up singing together, in every octave they knew.

When she finished, applause and cheers broke out through the room, and the Novigradians rose from their seats and pressed in, hounding the bard until Harry couldn't see her over the tops of their heads.

"Your friend is being swallowed whole," remarked Hermione pithily.

Harry shrugged. "She'll be fine, and she'll come here when she's ready. No need to hound the poor lass like this lot."

"Redanians," scoffed Hermione jokingly, "no manners at all."

Viktor took advantage of the time afforded by all the patrons of the tavern attempting to suffocate the bard, and headed to the innkeep's serving table, ordering drinks and coming back with a bottle of Erveluce.

"Erveluce," commented Harry, as the large man set the bottle down.

Hermione waved a hand toward the bottle, and the cork gently flew off it and into her hand. "Mhm. It's properly difficult to get a good bottle of wine outside of Toussaint and Temeria these days; Novigrad, by virtue of size alone, is one of the few exceptions, even if you have to pay an arm and a leg for it. Is there something wrong with it?"

"No, not at all," said the witcher, "I've just never had it before."

Hermione beamed. "Well, there's no better time to try than now, is there?"

"I suppose not."

"Come, come, let me pour you some, Master Witcher," she said, grabbing for the wooden mug Harry had been singing from. "Incredible that this tavern has a bottle of Erveluce and no goblets. I suppose we'll have to settle for this."

She poured out a healthy measure of the red liquid into the cup and handed it to Harry before doing the same for Viktor. Harry leaned over and sniffed the drink, smelling citrus and cloves and star anise melded in with the pungent aroma of fermented grapes and the metallic edge of alcohol. Shrugging, he brought the cup to his lips and took a slow sip. Despite his enhanced senses, Harry could only barely taste the alcohol, his tastebuds instead assaulted with a strangely satisfying peppery sweetness that would do wonders complementing a spicy stew.

"What do you think?" the sorceress asked, swishing the wine around her mouth, so as to savour the taste, before swallowing it.

"Much better than I was expecting," Harry said, looking over the drink. "Though I suppose it's a little light."

"Light? A few goblets of this, and you'll be more inebriated than a soldier on leave! Let me guess, you prefer pepper vodka," Hermione harrumphed.

"Rye, actually."

"An old-fashioned soul, then," remarked the sorceress. "At least that's good; if you admitted to pepper vodka, I'd take you for a fisstech addict as well."

"Erveluce?" a very familiar, sweet voice trilled behind the three. "Harry, Harry, you aren't going aristo on me, are you?"

Harry faced one of his oldest and greatest friends. "Please, as if you're one to talk, _Anariette_."

"Oh?" the redhead asked with a devilish little smile the witcher was sure he'd never grow tired of.

" _Of course_. You are, after all, performing your paltry rhymes at the grand old Kingfisher; it's quite a long way from shouting limericks at drunken knights in Beauclair."

Anariette's iceberg blue eyes narrowed in mock annoyance. "Ah, Witcher Harry, still an arsehole."

"As always," remarked the witcher, who opened his arms wide. In a flash, the woman crossed the distance and crushed herself to Harry, only extricating herself after breathing the man in.

"You smell of cloves," she said.

"Yes, my robes were recently washed. You don't like it?"

"No," Anariette said, "I _love_ it. You usually reek of dog-shite and nekker blood every time we meet."

"And on that note, it's time to introduce you," Harry said, turning from the bard to Hermione and Viktor, "Hermione and Viktor, this is Ana, the fairest woman to ever hail from Aedirn. Ana: Hermione, sorceress extraordinaire, and Viktor, the best sword born south of the Yaruga."

"A witcher, a sell-sword, and a sorceress find themselves in Novigrad," breathed Susan, eyes alight at the prospect of a story to be told, "by the Great Mother, this ballad practically writes itself! So, Harry, care to tell me why you and our lovely friends here have waltzed into this city?"

Hermione fidgeted uncomfortably, and Viktor stone-faced his way through an entire cup of Erveluce.

"I'll tell you later, away from all these ears. For right now..."

"You need rooms to sleep in, don't you?" asked the bard, anticipating Harry's plea. The witcher nodded, grimacing apologetically. "Unfortunately, there are no vacancies in any of the regular rooms. Fortunately, one of the two biggest suites is empty, and the other belongs to me. The owner of the Kingfisher owes me a favour, so I could get this room to you at a discount."

"Brilliant," said Harry, "how many beds in the free suite?"

"Two," said Susan, smiling.

"Perfect," said the witcher, clapping his hands together now that everything was settled.

"What?" Hermione asked. "We're a bed short."

Both the bard and the witcher grinned wolfishly. "No, we're not," said the famous Anariette.

"Not at all," agreed the subject of one of her many ballads.

* * *

They laid in a heap: pillows were scattered and strewn on polished wooden floors, amongst hose and hardy trousers; sheets hung off the bed, draped over a blue kaftan and a black velvet dress; a table was turned over and a candelabra was askew against the wall. It was a turbulent night, as it always was when they met.

Ana shifted over, draping herself across his chest.

"So," she said, sounding sleepily satisfied, "are you going to tell me what brought you to Novigrad, or are we to keep this up 'til dawn?"

"There's an idea," the witcher replied, tucking an arm beneath her head and curling a hand around to stroke her bare shoulder.

"I'd love to, but I'm afraid we've already scandalised half of Novigrad. Any more and I'm _sure_ the Temple Guard will burst through those doors and take us captive for debauchery."

The two laughed and fell into a comfortable silence, taking solace in each other's embrace.

"So, _Anariette_ ," Harry said, after a time. "Are you going to keep pretending you don't know why I'm here, or are we to dispense with usual song-and-dance?"

"But, Master Witcher, I'm a _bard_. I love nothing more than song-and-dance!"

The witcher snorted. "If you're a bard, then I'm a baker."

"Alright," she breathed huskily, "then let's get straight to business: you're here with a sorceress," she spoke, switching accents on a dime from highland Aedirnian, to southern Temerian.

"Yes."

"I happen to know several other mages are in Novigrad tonight, as well, from both Aretuza and the Magical Academy at Ban Ard. And that Redanian soldiers are here with them as well," she giggled at the witcher's expression. "Oh, come off it, Harry; they may think they're sneaky, but they're hardly _real_ spies."

"And you are," Harry said, sceptical.

"Harry, please, don't insult me. I've been traveling for years doing this bothersome job and still no one suspects me. Now would you be so kind to enlighten me as to why all these persons of interest have conglomerated in Novigrad for one night only? And why a large contingent of sorcerers have gone to Ard Carraigh in Kaedwen?"

"Why, Susan? So you can hoof it back to Vizima and report to Gardic?"

Susan Bones smugly grinned when Harry used her true name. "That's _His Grace_ , to you. You should address your king with respect, Harry."

"He's not my king."

"Oh, but he is," said the redhead, "you may try to hide behind your Neutrality and your disdain for politics, but you're a Temerian, whether you like it or not. And do you know why?"

"Why?" Harry asked, humouring her.

"It's the only reason you didn't kill me the first time we met."

Harry grimaced for a fraction of a second, because Susan was right, in this instance.

Several years ago, he did travel to Toussaint, and he did meet a bard, who claimed to hail from Vengerberg, and she had attracted attention from a vampire. The witcher's due diligence, however, eventually led him to the truth: there was no attraction in this tale at all. The man after her was secretly a Katakan, but was both harmless and a member of Queen Adamarta's court, the only one of which that cautioned against a deal with Temeria to trade wine at a lower price in exchange for three battalions to help guard the borders of Toussaint. It seemed a harmless deal, but given the growing unrest in the North, the Redanians could interpret the action as the small duchy picking sides for any wars to come, and it was wiser for them to remain neutral.

"Oh, please," Harry denied, "I only spared you because you have magnificent tits."

"Thank you, but no, you didn't," said Susan, turning onto her back so that Harry was given a clear view of those magnificent breasts. "You knew by the end that I was working for Gardic, that I had been sent there to stop the vampire, whether by charm or by knife. And I would have, too; when he didn't respond to bribes, I resorted to exposing what he really was. You could have simply killed me and been done with it."

"I'm sure _His Grace_ didn't have twenty assassins waiting for the moment you failed," replied Harry.

"You're probably correct about that, but you then advised the vampire to leave the duchy to minimise bloodshed, and he did, leaving us free to finalise our accord with the Queen of Toussaint. See? You're a true patriot."

"Bore off, I did that so the common folk wouldn't lynch him, not for some fucking wine deal with Temeria."

Susan suppressed a little snicker, and once again turned back to him. "Whatever your reasoning, you did it, and here we are. You've already done it once, why not help us again?"

"Fine," said Harry, "but only if you help me, as well."

"Ooh, I can't wait to hear this... is this about your family's fortune, again? I already told you the state claimed it when your father died."

"No," said Harry, "it has to do with what I'm about to tell you."

"Go on, then."

"Have you yet heard about the death of the Chancellor at the University of Oxenfurt?"

"Have I? It's all Vizima asks me about these days."

"It's likely that he was killed by a djinn."

"A djinn," Susan deadpanned. "He was killed by a myth?"

"Apparently it isn't a myth."

"What?" the redhead asked, befuddled. " _You_ were the one who told me they weren't real!"

"I can be wrong, you know."

"About a monster? You're a _witcher_ ; you know that, right? That's like a shepherd not knowing that _wolves_ exist."

"Would you shut up and listen, please?" Harry shot back, annoyance bubbling over.

"Fine, fine, go ahead."

"The Headmaster from Ban Ard also confirmed this, saying that the djinn was actually stolen from somewhere within the school."

"Who on earth would keep something so dangerous at a school?"

Harry shrugged. "Albus Dumbledore, apparently. The thieves then came to the University of Oxenfurt in search of a device that can seal and unseal djinn within objects, called a binding rod, which Dumbledore gave to Chancellor Fudge for safekeeping. Apparently, they found it somewhere in the Chancellor's office whilst the man was still there."

"And then what?"

"Seemingly, they tried to take the djinn out of the lamp it was bound to right then and there."

"In the Chancellor's office?" Susan asked, sceptical.

"I see you have the same problem with that story that I did." Harry laughed. "Glad that someone else finally sees it."

"What are you thinking?" the bard questioned and stood up to pace at the foot of the bed, her nude form bathed in moonlight from an open window.

"That the Chancellor was in on it," shrugged the witcher as he sat up and propped himself on his elbows, to get a better look at his companion. "It's all too suspicious. A powerful sorcerer tells you to keep an object safe, as though your very life depended on it, and you keep it in your office? In what? A desk drawer? Ridiculous."

"Not to mention, the thieves didn't wait until they were safe from prying eyes, and instead open this lamp right in the middle of the office in a fairly crowded University," Susan mused.

"Precisely, and if the Chancellor was killed by the djinn, he must have been there for the unsealing."

"But why?" asked the redhead. "Why on earth would the Chancellor at the University of Oxenfurt need to consort with a pair of thieves?"

"Come on, Susie, isn't that one obvious?" Harry snorted. "It's a Djinn. They grant wishes. This Fudge bloke probably learned what the binding rod was for, from the thieves, and then asked for a wish or two. No matter how rich or prestigious you are, there must be something you want."

Susan smiled coyly, and sauntered over to Harry's side of the bed, fluttering her lashes coquettishly. She stopped at the edge of the mattress and lifted one impossibly long leg over Harry's form and planted the dainty foot attached to it firmly on the mattress, before lifting the other one and planting it on the other side. She stood over him like a colossus, still grinning, before lowering herself down to a straddle, where her body met his.

"I can think of a few things," she whispered breathily.

"Come on, be serious," Harry chuckled, "you're the one who wanted this information anyways."

"This is all extraneous information," she said, and gyrated her hips once, eliciting a soft groan from her partner, "tell me what Vestibor, Dagread, and the mages are up to; the Oxenfurt murder is ultimately useless to me."

The witcher's hands went from his sides to grasp the bard's hips, and then her bottom. "You're too impatient. If you'd let me finish, you'd learn that the Chancellor's death is the entire point of this expedition."

"Is it?" asked Susan, moving more swiftly and breathing heavily now, though her eyes still contained intelligence untainted by the haze of lust.

What a tease. Harry hated her; he truly hated her.

"Yeah..." he trailed off at the sensation, but then picked up again, attempting to regain his bearings. "If a djinn can grant any wish, that makes it dangerous. All its master has to say is 'Destroy Novigrad', and a meteor will fall on Hierarch Square, or the value of the crown will crash for years to come, or a horde from Haakland will blow through the streets and drown the city in its own blood."

"Mm, yes," agreed Susan, though Harry wasn't exactly sure if she was agreeing with what he was saying or what he was doing. "Properly dramatic."

"We've gotten information suggesting that the thieves are two mages, likely males, who have disappeared around the Kestrel mountain range. So, the sorcerers and sorceresses from Ban Ard and Aretuza petitioned both Vestibor and Dagread for soldiers, to make this a joint operation between the countries to find the thieves and return the djinn to Dumbledore for safe-keeping."

"That's it?" Susan raised a brow.

"Well, yeah."

"No backroom deals? No secretive alliances?"

"I very much doubt it."

"Oof," sighed Susan, "what a waste of time it was coming here."

"Hey. Come on, now."

"Oh, not you, Harry. I adore the time we spend together."

Harry laughed and grasped the bard's bottom once more; lifting her up, he flipped her onto the other side of the bed. "But, regardless of whether or not it was useful intel, we had a deal. And now that I've helped you, you need to help me."

"Ah, he had nothing to give and secured a much greater gift with his nothing. A solid bluff. Well played, Master Witcher."

"I could use less whining and more helping, Madame Anariette."

Harry suddenly felt a pleasant, tightening sensation, and realised Susan was flexing a particularly wonderful muscle. "Am I not already helping?" she asked innocently.

"Loads," he chuckled, "but I know you've spies all over Redania and Kaedwen, and you most likely have some near the Kestrels as well. I'd like to know if any of your contacts has heard any news of two mages around the area, or, at the very least, suspicious newcomers around the borderlands."

Susan frowned. "I don't keep in regular contact with the other spies, so I'm not entirely aware of any news coming out from the Kestrels. But, there is a man who would know if anyone matching your description came by."

"Really, who is it?"

"I assume your party is to travel through to Ghelibol?"

"Yes," nodded Harry.

"Good. Once you're there, look for a man they call The Fisherman. He knows everything that goes in and out of the Kestrels, from princes to the common vagrant. If anyone knows where your thieves are, he will."

"Thank you, Miss Bones," Harry grinned, and then looked down at their conjoined forms. "Now that all of that's out of the way, how about we focus on the matter at hand?"

"Great Melitele, I thought you'd never bloody ask."

* * *

The next morning, Harry adjusted his the saddlebags on Sleipnir, feeling like a man who'd been sucked dry by a succubus. With a stupid, dreamy grin on his face, the witcher went about his work, not noticing the evil glare Hermione was giving him from her seat on the steps of the inn.

"Did you have a good night's rest?" she interrogated, sounding alert and furious despite how tired she looked.

Harry nodded. "The best I've had in a while."

"I know you did," snipped the sorceress, "and do you know _how_ I know you did? Because you and that _banshee_ kept me awake all night."

Embarrassment quickly overcame the witcher's previously careless state. "Oh. Ah. I'm sorry, I guess."

Hermione shrugged. "Don't be. I'm quite sure it was a lot of fun. You could stand to... tone it down a notch, however."

"You needn't worry; I'm certain it won't happen again on this trip of ours," and, as he said that, the front doors to The Kingfisher burst open and said banshee strutted out strumming on her lute and absentmindedly humming along to the tune. She was followed by Viktor, who looked as sleep-deprived as Hermione. The two stood of to the side as Susan stepped up to Harry, to say her goodbyes:

"Harry," the redhead smiled warmly. "A pleasure, as always."

"Goodbye, Ana," he said fondly.

The bard placed a warm hand on his cheek. "See you soon, hopefully."

"Hopefully."

With that, Anariette was off to her next gig as a bard, and presumably, her next job for Temeria. Harry watched her retreating form until she was well out of view. Eventually, a light tap came at his head, and Harry turned to see it was Sleipnir who had gently nudged the witcher's head with his own. The horse snorted softly, as if to ask what was wrong; Harry smiled wistfully and patted the stallion's snout:

"It's nothing," he said. "Nothing at all."

Hermione and Viktor seemed to take considerably longer to ready their own mounts, but they eventually got going down the streets of Novigrad, and Hermione was soon in her usual, talkative mood. And even Viktor, seemingly buoyed by the fact that Harry appeared to be interested in bards and not sorceresses, was several shades of polite and agreeable.

The sun shined and Novigrad bustled about, completely unaware of their leaving. They would meet the rest of the group at the Oxenfurt Gate; from there, Roggeveen and Ghelibol beckoned, and the ultimate destination of the Kestrels lay not much further ahead.

* * *

 **A/N:** So there will be at least one more chapter of The Last Wish (which is incredibly, as of this chapter, still a bit shorter than The Lesser Kindness, though it feels like I've covered much more in it). I'd like to finish TLW within the next chapter, and move onto the next chapter with Geralt and Dandelion, so that we can move onto the next arc. I really like the storyline for the next arc alot, so I'm anxious to get to it. I'd like to be done with the next chapter and the next arc before Blood and Wine comes out, but that's probably wishful thinking, given how long each of these arcs have been

As for a little sneak peek, the next arc is titled "Aen Saevherne". Take from that what you will.

Chapter Notes:

\- Gardic, a Correction: In The Lesser Kindness, Part 2, I suggested that Goidemar was likely King of Temeria during the Seven Years' War. I've since realised this was incorrect, as Goidemar was the Temerian King during Falka's rebellion. Falka was the daughter of King Vridank, who is Vestibor's great-grandson, which means that Goidemar was likely the King of Temeria in the mid-1100s, not the 1000s. The Witcher wiki has posited that Gardic was the king of Temeria during the time of the Seven Years' War, so that's the assumption I'll operate under for the rest of this fic.

\- Anariette: This is my little ode to Blood and Wine, which will be out next week. Anariette is the stage name for Susan, and the first of several references to Toussaint and B&W: Harry and Susan met in Toussaint; the contract Harry undertook was to stop an elder vampire, which appears to be the plot behind the upcoming expansion, and Anariette is a reference to Anna Henrietta, queen of Toussaint, who is known as Anarietta to close friends and associates, and appears to be a major character in the expansion.

\- The Perfect Kiss: Is the name of Susan's ballad, as well as one of my favourite New Order songs.

\- Sleipnir: The stallion shares a name with Odin's eight-legged horse. Given Harry's background in Skellige, it seemed appropriate.

\- Some of you might be off-put by Harry simply telling Susan what happened in Oxenfurt, when he claims to be apolitical, but the information he had was actually fairly useless to the Temerians, as it doesn't threaten national security at all. Essentially, Harry told the truth because the truth is uninteresting to a spy like Susan.

Thanks for reading!  
Geist.


	9. TLW, Part 5

**Summary** : An sorceress contracts a witcher to capture a djinn, and everyone who has read The Last Wish collectively cringes at my lack of originality.

* * *

THE LAST WISH

* * *

V

* * *

"You're really much too interested in this, Miss Granger," said Harry, gently urging the stallion to the right to follow the path. To his left, Hermione shrugged, slouched over so low in her saddle that she was practically resting her face in her mare's mane:

"Well, everything else is so very _boring_. Meadow this, forest that, glade the other... not to mention there's not much conversation to be had with this lot," she said, and pointed ahead, in the direction of the stone-faced soldiers and the sorcerers who looked like they wanted nothing more than to put an ocean between themselves and the witcher.

"Viktor's still around, you know," he said, nodding to the fur-wrapped southerner, who returned the gesture.

"We've spent the last two hours talking, if you haven't noticed," Hermione reminded.

"Then talk to him another two hours."

"You know, when I first met you, you struck me as a much kinder man than you actually are."

"And you struck me as a no-nonsense type, unaffected by and uninterested in idle gossip," Harry retorted.

"In normal cases you'd be correct," said Hermione.

"What? Am I an abnormal case, then?"

The sorceress glared. "You know very well that I was _not_ going to say that."

"What would you have said then?"

"A _special_ case," said the brunette primly, nodding proudly as though she was the paragon of tact. "They tell us, elves, humans, and dwarves alike, that witchers are inhuman monsters. That you are incapable of loving, or caring, or even feeling the most basic emotion. And yet it's quite clear you care for that bard immensely."

"It's also quite clear," said Harry, "that you are an obsessive: We've been traveling what, two days since Novigrad?"

"Three."

"We've passed Roggeveen?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"And you've still not shut up about her."

"Well, then just admit it: you do care for her, this Anariette."

"Sure. Of course I do," Harry said, partially saying it because it was the truth, but mostly saying it so the sorceress would finally leave him alone.

"Do you love her?"

"Love?" Harry snorted.

Hermione sat up ramrod straight in her saddle, and glared back at him. While kinder than most mages, Hermione still retained that telltale pride that all mages had, which always seemed to be so easily wounded. Every time she felt someone was even attempting to make a joke at her expense, Hermione rose like a wraith and immediately squashed her tormentor with a quick and ruthless lash of the tongue. She was rather lethal at it, too, so Harry immediately raised his arms up in surrender.

"What's so funny about it?" the sorceress interrogated.

"I don't know. It's just such a strange thing to be asked."

"Eternal Fire, _Elf_ , would you two _shut up_?" someone groaned from up ahead, and though the Redanians looked relieved that someone had finally spoken up, Harry was quite certain it came from the coterie of sorcerers. And indeed it had come from that group, for Hermione's eyes narrowed at one of the group in particular:

"I don't recall talking to you, Malfoy," she snapped at Lucius Malfoy, riding among his compatriots up ahead.

"And yet I still have to hear it," the blond man said, delivering a suitable riposte. "And it's torture, listening to your naive tosh about love. Witchers don't love; they're mere pretenders who thought they could be mages and sacrificed their humanity to steal a few parlour tricks, claiming that now makes them capable to fight monsters."

"I think Harry can decide that for himself," the brunette growled.

Though he was a very handsome man, Lucius Malfoy had a repellent smile: it was a rancid, wormy gash under a strong, straight nose, and piercing blue eyes that would make maidens swoon wherever he went, so long as the man never smiled. The witcher had seen drowners more handsome than a smiling Malfoy, yet Malfoy smiled all the same, odious and slippery.

"Well, let's ask him then," he said silkily. "Mutant. Have you ever loved?"

Harry decided to move on; he wasn't here to get into involved in a shouting match between Hermione and some sycophant sorcerer who had attached himself at the hip to King Vestibor. But it appeared the sorcerer had other ideas, clapping him harshly on the shoulder as he passed by:

"I asked you a question. Why do you not answer?"

Harry shrugged the other man off. "Touch me again, and King's leashed mage or not, I'll take that hand as a souvenir."

The sorcerer did not touch him again. Whether Malfoy truly believed he was a mutant who stole a few parlour tricks from proper mages, there were few out there brave enough to repeatedly antagonise a witcher, and it seemed the silver-blond man hadn't the stones. Harry overtook the mages, and fell in line with the soldiers, instead.

"Sorry about that, Master Witcher," apologised Neville, "but thank you for not letting this escalate any further than it did. I'd not want to explain to Vestibor that a witcher cut off the head of his most trusted sorcerer."

"I'd rather not dwell on it, Longbottom. For now, let's just ride."

The soldiers nodded and immediately picked up the pace. And soon, they fell into a comfortable silence, and not one of them thought to disturb Harry. And the witcher was perfectly fine with that. They might not be perfect, but the soldiers, hardy and used to a life of combat, were more his people than a pack of sorcerers would ever be.

* * *

They arrived in the region of Ghelibol a day after that, quickly skirting around the stronghold of Mirt, not wanting to attract the attention of Cultists of the Lionhead Spider. They soon settled for supper in a small town on the Nimnar. While the soldiers and sorcerers headed to what few taverns were in the region, Harry simply settled by his horse and dined on a few cuts of cured meat and hardtack, which he had carried in his saddlebags.

The sun set late, as it always did this far north in the continent, and by nightfall, a bitter wind flew through the small town, the thatched-roofs hardened with the first touches of frost, and a million stars blinked in the cloudless sky, coldly watching over it all.

It was then, alone and unwatched, that Harry began his search for The Fisherman. Susan had told him the best person to ask after The Fisherman was the proprietor at the Sundowner Tavern, situated at the edge of town where it was steeped at the banks of the river on one side.

She had also said that it would be wiser to consult the man long after the typical, rowdy crowd had retired home for the evening, and that was precisely when the witcher stole into the near empty pub.

"What can I get for you, mate?" the bartender inquired from behind a stall brimming with jugs of vodka. Like the innkeep behind them, the alcohol was also obscured behind a platter of salami and sausage, that were laid out next to a long string of garlic and onions that hung from the ceiling.

He was a thin and short man, wearing dirtied apron over a rough cloth jerkin; his face was sweaty and stained with the soot of some fire he'd been attending to earlier, and a greasy rag was tied inelegantly around his bald head. Despite having the look of a country bumpkin, there was a gleam in his cold, grey eyes, a bright spark of intelligence that couldn't fully be hidden by dirty, ill-fitting clothes and his simpleton expression.

"Rye. Temerian, if you have it."

The shopkeep's eyes narrowed, true to form. No red-blooded, patriotic Redanian would dare ask for a Temerian spirit, of course.

"Aye," he said, disappearing under the bar and soon resurfacing with a glass bottle filled with amber liquid, "I have it. Anything else you're looking for?"

"I could go for a nice trout, or salted cod."

"Fish, you say?"

"Of course, but only the best. I hear this town sells the best."

"Oh? And who did you hear it from?"

"A fiery woman with a voice like a siren."

The barkeep nodded slowly, turned to his right, where a stack of recently-cleaned terracotta cups lay, and gathered one of them. He returned to his post and uncorked the bottle, pouring out the whisky quickly, in a manner that could only come with years of experience behind the counter.

He slid the drink over to the witcher. "You want the best fish in town, you won't find it here."

"So tell me where I might find it," Harry replied, and took a quick swig of whisky.

"There's a fishery, not too far from here," the barkeep said, "it's a bit out of the way, but you can find some the best cuts there: trout, cod, salmon, common roach, whatever you desire. The fisherman... the fishmonger is, well, a bit odd. But he's up all hours, and you won't get better value anywhere else."

"How do I get there? I'd reckon I'd like to make a stew for tomorrow."

"Outside, follow the Nimnar along the path away from town, until you reach a bend, and then a fork in the road. Go, left, toward the river until you smell smoked salmon. Then, follow your nose and you'll find the fisherman's hut. For the right price, he'll take care of all your needs."

Harry tossed a few Novigradian crowns on the counter. "Thanks for the drink."

"My pleasure."

Harry adjusted the strap of his sword-belt, coughed once lightly, and stepped out into the night. The cold wind still blew, but it was soft enough that the witcher found it more pleasant than burdensome. The witcher started down the path, whistling a light tune he had heard some years ago in Lyria, seemingly unmindful of where he was going. That was the way it would appear to the common bystander, at least.

He looked to the trees opposite the river; they stood as watchmen, calmly swaying in the breeze. There was whistling like breathing, and the crunching of leaves underfoot an uneven gait, and the sounds of jangling, yet the trees stood proudly in their armour of roots and bark, making none of those sounds. The noises suddenly captivated Harry, slowing when he slowed, speedin up when he sped up, and stopping entirely if he did the same, first.

 _Crunch_ , a twig snapped somewhere, softly to the normal ear, but to Harry, it was loud enough to fill half the world with its thunder.

The witcher stopped, and drew his sword on the forest. "You can come out, now," he, eyeing the bush critically.

The uneven gait began once more, and leaves were again crushed by it; it came closer, closer, until a pale, thin face and amber eyes poked out from the darkness.

"Lady Granger," Harry said respectfully, though he kept his sword drawn. "What brings you by this way, so late at night?"

The sorceress scoffed. "I'd wager I could ask you the same question,"

"I'm out for a stroll; you're the one stalking me from shrubbery to shrubbery," Harry retorted. "What's your excuse?"

"I aim to find out where it is you're going; it's had you acting stranger since we left Novigrad," she said, only just slightly limping toward him, a little flaw of the body expressed so quickly and covered up so thoroughly by the rest of its magical perfection, that Harry nearly did not notice the quirk.

"What's happened to your leg?" he asked, concerned.

"Leg?" Hermione answered, "nothing's happened to my leg."

Harry blinked; had she walked that way the whole time? How did he not notice? Lacking any pretense of subtlety, he stared at her shapely legs. The witcher's gaze moved slowly up the length of them, lingering on a pack strapped to her thigh, with a small, corked vial, filled three-quarters with a sludgy substance, holstered in it.

"That looks... appetising," he said, indicating the vial.

Hermione blushed and turned away, so he couldn't see the concoction. "It's.. a poultice. Not unlike the ones you witchers use. Except, of course, it won't rip my insides to shreds."

"What's it for?"

"Why are you so curious about it?" she huffed.

"Because you're embarrassed about it."

"Well, yes. Because it _is_ embarrassing," the sorceress said, and looked away, "it's for—how shall I put it delicately?— _Women's health_."

"I see," mumbled Harry awkwardly. "It still doesn't explain what you're doing hiding behind the bushes."

"Isn't it obvious? I was following you."

"Why?"

"You didn't dine with us," she accused, as if this was strange behaviour.

"I'm not especially fond of our company, Lady Hermione; your sorcerer friends are—"

"Cunts, I know," Hermione interrupted indelicately, in a manner completely unlike her own, and much closer to the witcher's own disposition. Harry raised an eyebrow, and the brunette flushed once more.

"This and the poultices," he remarked with a laugh, "you certainly are gynecological tonight."

"Honestly, do shut up," sneered the sorceress. "Do you know what's been on my mind, lately?"

"Yes, vaginas."

"Again, _shut up_. And no, it's you I'm thinking of. You've been rather pensive lately, ever since we left Novigrad, and it's only intensified since we passed through Roggeveen. At first, I thought you might be missing your bard, and then I thought it might be our company, as you said. But I disagree, because while they might be fiends, you've forgotten one crucial thing while you've enjoyed your jests, Master Witcher. And do you know what that is?"

"What is it?"

"That I can read your mind." Harry suddenly noticed the foreign feeling of intrusion just as it slipped away; Hermione stared back, a wide grin set upon her pretty, elvish features. "So come along now, let's find this fisherman of yours."

Harry rounded on her:

"How much do you know?" he interrogated.

"Enough to know things about the Temerian Secret Service that I have no inclination of informing Vestibor of. I was born in Aedirn; I've no interest in the fate or politics of Redania. And I've even less of a desire to turn in the lady love of one of my friends," Hermione finished, her grin transforming to a feline smile of quiet contentment in knowing she had the upper-hand over the witcher.

Harry drew back; it was enough for now, but he would take stronger caution around the sorceress in the future. Charming as she was, she was like most mages in having boundary issues and entirely too much curiosity. So, he turned away, and began walking down the path as if Hermione had never interrupted him:

"Come along, then," he groused, "I haven't got all night."

The sorceress trotted over and fell in step with Harry, as they quickly traveled down the long and winding path around the snake-like Nimnar. The time spent along the road gave Harry time to observe his partner, particularly her gait. It was subtle enough that even the witcher didn't even notice it until he faced her down with a sword, observing the sorceress in the same light that he might a forktail. It would be impossible for the common man to see, but witcher senses were just keen enough to see her limp slightly with every step.

She was a mage. Practically every injury she'd ever received could be healed completely, so her limp had to be involuntary, psychosomatic, as the pomps at Oxenfurt would say, as though it was something she was used to. Perhaps, then, it was an old wound, sustained long before she received her training in magic.

"So what was it?" the witcher asked; if she had no qualms asking him personal questions, then he would not either.

"What was what?"

"Your leg. Wyvern? Cyclops?"

Hermione's alarmed eyes shot up from the road, to him, and Harry met brown orbs with a patient, golden gaze. Or, at least he hoped it looked patient, people were rarely anything but unnerved when looking into his eyes, and the chestnut-haired sorceress seemed no different: she looked away, and was silent for a very long time.

As they passed a bend and marched down the left path at a fork in the road, just when Harry thought he had sparked that famous sorceress ire, Hermione answered, softly. "It was a rock troll."

"Oof," Harry grimaced. "Tough buggers when they get angry. And they get angry easily."

"Yes, you're certainly right about that," murmured Hermione.

He thought to ask the woman how she came about meeting this rock troll, but just as he opened his mouth, a faint and familiar, pleasant scent wafted to his nose. It smelled of salt-water, smoke, and seared, sea-borne flesh; the scent of cooking fish mingled with that of vanilla and parchment paper, the latter of which emanated, the witcher soon deduced, from his companion.

"We're nearing," he said confidently.

"Ah, yes, I can tell: it smells like the bloody Novigrad docks at dawn," Hermione frowned, and scrunched her nose in distaste.

Harry laughed. "You think this is bad? Try gutting one yourself."

"I'll pass," said Hermione, as they passed through a slight obstacle by way of bushes, and out into the light of a campfire, where a relatively fresh catch of fish roasted over the flames.

A man, old and haggard, tired and bored, sat tending to the fire with a conviction of an old man ready for death. His grey hair was tangled and gnarled, and his face might have been pleasing, had it not been covered nearly entirely by a beard as well-groomed as the bird's nest obscuring his jaw. His skin oily and olive-coloured, from his years slaving away in the sun.

The Fisherman looked up, with eyes hard and piercing like a shard of ice.

"A witcher and an elf, fantastic," he murmured lowly to himself, perhaps thinking Harry wouldn't be able to hear it, "Go away. come back in the morning; it's far, far too late for customers."

"Please," scoffed Hermione, "we're not customers."

The sunburned man's eyes narrowed, and his jaw clenched stubbornly, in the same way that annoyed simpleton might try. "If you're customers, come back in the morning. If you're not customers, then fuck off; I don't need bloody canvassers at my doorstep."

"Well done, Granger. Real subtle," murmured Harry, earning an equally annoyed glare from the sorceress, as she received from The Fisherman. "We're here for fish. And we won't until morning."

"Lady elf over here just said you weren't shopping."

"She doesn't know how to haggle," Harry dismissed casually. "Grew up with the Elves of the Blue Mountains; all of them are arse-backwards there. Talk to me, and you'll get a good deal."

"Ah, you will, will you? So, then what are you in for?"

"Two fishes," replied Harry. "Exotic, not native to these parts."

"Exotic? I fish in the Nimnar; how am I to wrangle up a catch that isn't native to the river?"

Harry shrugged. "They probably swam in on their own, and perhaps caused quite a ruckus among the common folk. People aren't used to strange things or strange people around here."

The Fisherman squinted, then those chips of ice widened, and glittered with understanding. "Were you recommended to me by someone, Master Witcher?"

"It was a siren, I believe. Lovely voice. Gorgeous hair."

"Ah, I see. Well, come then," the man said, gesturing to the door of his hut. "We'll finish our negotiation for your fish inside."

Harry nodded, and The Fisherman turned to his roasted fish, pulling them off the fire one-by-one, into a copper plate that had been laying a few feet from the flame and smoke. Once finished, the old man picked up the plate, nodded toward Harry and Hermione, and turned for the door. Hermione, in a manner she seemed to think covert, took a quick step backward so the witcher would have to take the lead; Harry half-wondered if she expected an ambush waiting in the shack.

The Fisherman marched like a soldier, one foot high and sure with every step, and he managed to open the door to his hut with surprising grace for a man with both hands full. Harry came up behind, and held the door open to help the man in, and waited politely for Hermione to go in.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked.

"Chivalric code, Lady Hermione. It would stain my honour to go in before you," he said, mockingly.

The sorceress sneered mightily as she stepped inside, where The Fisherman sat at a small, ramshackle table, a meat cleaver in hand. Hermione gave the man a leery look from the edge of the room, and then crossed her arms:

"Might I ask what the knife is for?"

"Protection." He shrugged casually. "You know who I am, but I don't have any assurances who you are, beside you appearing to know Red."

Red must have been Susan. "Isn't that enough?" Harry questioned, unmindful of his knife when he sat at the table opposite the fishmonger.

"Hardly. Ye could have captured the poor lass and tortured it out of her."

"Oh, please. Honestly, if he wanted to hurt you, he could," Hermione said.

The Fisherman nodded, considering that. "Aye, that's true, I'd likely be no match for a witcher."

"Precisely," said Harry, intending to nip this argument before it wasted any more time. "I'm a witcher. A caste who are famously apolitical. I have little loyalty to Temeria, and even less to Redania; this is just business."

"Chatter away, Master Witcher, Lady Elf, but I'm not putting the knife away. Makes me feel safe, if nothing else."

"If it makes you more comfortable, then go ahead."

"Good, thank'ee Master Witcher. Now, about this fish, of yours... exotic, you said, so they're not from the backwater?"

"Nope, exotic, strange, and magical, I'd reckon these two are graduates from Ban Ard. Both are men, and probably have only recently appeared wherever they've gone."

"Kaedweni accents?"

"Possibly, we can't be sure."

"But strange and new..." The Fisherman trailed off, but soon perked up, " _ah_! I have heard of something like that, in point of fact. One of my little mountainside rats from the town of Wezyn, deep within the Kestrels, scurried a message over to me not more that two days past."

"Two strangers arrived in town four days ago, dressed in rich kaftans and carrying jewelry and precious stones," he said, "they speak with accent, possibly Kaedweni, possibly from Upper Aedirn."

"The accent, is Lormark a possibility?" Hermione interrogated, suddenly incisive.

"Aye, the North March is what I meant when I said Upper Aedirn, Lady Elf."

And suddenly satisfied, Hermione nodded curtly and proceeded to let Harry take the point in the conversation once more: "Men with strange accents and far too much wealth... sounds suitably suspicious. But, how do you know this, when Tretogor and Ard Carraigh don't?"

"Wezyn is too deep into the mountains, in a neutral, demilitarised zone. Neither Vestibor nor Dagread dare set foot there for fear of sparking a war. Despite their reluctance, the people tend to make excellent informants, as they move all around the mountains, in and out of Redanian and Kaedweni border-towns and camps. Lots of information to be learned there. Ah well, one nation's loss is another's gain, or something like that."

"Wezyn, you said?" Harry asked once more, just to make sure.

"Aye," replied The Fisherman. "Wezyn."

* * *

They were to meet the contingent of Kaedweni soldiers and the delegates from the Academy at Ban Ard, at a ruined elven castle deep within the neutral zone, which was a four-hour ride from the region of Ghelibol. Though they had left by the early light of dawn, spirits were high among the assorted travelers. The sorcerers laughed and squabbled good-naturedly among one another, the soldiers had stopped frowning so much, and Harry led the group with Hermione, Viktor, and Longbottom.

"It is really quite an amazing thing when you think about it. Anything you wish for, granted. Just like that," the soldier was remarking. "I always thought djinn were just stories my grandmum told me."

"It's precisely for that reason why they're so dangerous," reminded Hermione, "the wrong kind of wish can topple nations."

Harry barked out a laugh, reminded of his adventure with Ron, the Wolf School witcher, and the unlucky dryad who ardently wished for the fall of Cintra. As if sensing his master's glee, Sleipnir whickered softly, in a way that sounded oddly reminiscent of a chuckle. Unlike his trusty steed, all three of Harry's companions stared at him with varying degrees of consternation, from a squint of the eyes to a quirk of the eyebrows, and everything in between.

"My personal experience with wishes," Harry replied, providing explanation for his outburst, "is that it tends to be a sword that only cuts the user."

"Another reason to be careful," agreed Hermione. "Djinn tend to deal in absolutes: if you don't tell them exactly what you want, exactly the way you want it, then expect a prank that goes anywhere from mildly mischievous, to practically lethal."

"Still, the lure of getting anything you wish for... it's a hell of a lure."

Hermione smiled knowingly. "Why, you seem rather wistful, Longbottom. Is there any particular wish you'd like to have granted?"

"Oh, what? I don't... I'm not... hrmm..." Neville stumbled over his words, and quickly petered out to silence.

Hermione shrugged carelessly. "You simply keep mentioning it; what are we supposed to think?"

"Well, I mean I _have_ wishes. Don't we all?"

"Of course," said Hermione, "but I didn't ask you if you _had_ wishes, I asked you if you had a wish _in particular_."

"I... well, I..." said the soldier meekly, and Harry had to stifle his laughter at the sheer absurdity of the situation. This man was a hardened soldier, one who had seen a lot of combat to have been appointed to the Redanian Special Task Force, and here he was, being made to act like a naughty schoolchild by a slip of a woman, and an elf to boot.

"Fine. Master Witcher?"

"Yes, Madame Sorceress?"

"Have you anything to wish for?"

"A pair of socks that always stay dry, and boots that never wear," Harry replied, ever the picture of ultimate practicality.

He faced a blank stare from the sorceress. "Really. Socks and boots. That's what you'd spend your wishes on," she repeated dully. Both Viktor and Longbottom, who were undoubtedly more accustomed to traveling by foot than the sorceress was, let out light chuckles:

"Very good," complimented Viktor, and Harry nodded his thanks.

"Ha-ha! This one has head in the right place. If you think that's a daft wish, Lady Hermione, it simply means you've not traveled anywhere near enough yet," snickered the soldier.

"No," groused Hermione, "I think it's daft, because you could simply then wish for gold and buy all the boots and socks that your heart desires."

Longbottom chuckled heartily. "Ah, but therein lies the beauty of it all, Lady Hermione! People covet gold; they'll chase you half the world round to steal it from you. Boots, no one cares about, because few people really think about it. To have one that never wears is to own something inestimably valuable, though not valuable enough that a man would slit your throat for it."

"Speak for yourself. I've met bandits who would rape their own mothers for scraps," Harry said.

"Well," said Hermione, ignoring Harry's macabre quip, "the witcher has given us his most ardent wish, stupid as they are, and now I believe it's your turn."

"Why, isn't it obvious? I'd wish for a way to live every day of my life as it were my last, but never fear the sting of death. Immortality is the only wish I would make because it's the only one that makes sense. Don't you agree?"

Viktor and Hermione considered the prospect, while Harry shook his head. "I'd still have the boots."

Neville looked appalled by the very idea of it. "Come off it, Witcher, you can't be serious!"

"I can. What's the point of immortality? You say it would be a pleasure to live every day as if it were your last, but the fear of death is half the pleasure of living. Without it, there are no stakes. You can't take joy any of your accomplishments or lament your failures because ultimately, you'll survive regardless. When you have no fear of dying, you lose everything else with it."

"Are you speaking from experience, Master Witcher?" asked the soldier curiously. "No fear of death; they say it was beaten out of you with the mutations. 'Men of stone', they say. If fear is the key to all other emotions, is that why they say your caste have none?"

"Perhaps."

Sensing he might have offended the mutant, the soldier immediately turned to Hermione, hoping, perhaps, to take the attention off himself:

"So, I've answered. Now, as is courtesy, what would you wish for?"

"Pardon me?"

"If you were the master of one of these djinn. You asked both the Witcher and I; I think it's only proper that you answer as well."

Hermione shifted in her seat, and leaned forward, biting her lip in concentration. She seemed to have quite a few wishes, Harry decided upon seeing her agonise over the decision. She moved one hand from the reigns of her mare to her stomach, perhaps to steady herself, and then answered:

"I'd like a dress of the finest materials, that could never be replicated, and never be destroyed," Neville appeared to buy the poor lie, and the witcher hid a laugh behind a gloved hand. He had not seen the sorceress in a dress since their meeting in Oxenfurt; Harry wasn't even sure if she owned a dress. And, even if she did secretly love dresses, Hermione had just finished lecturing him about wishing for boots; a dress would be no better.

Truly, it was a poor lie.

"Half the world over would be jealous of you," remarked the soldier without a drop of irony, "that's actually a better wish than I thought."

"Why, of course it is," deadpanned the elf, turning away from the soldier to wink at Viktor, who struggled to keep the amusement off his lips.

The witcher, predictably, shook his head at it all.

* * *

When Harry saw it, he was struck by the inevitability of time. Years would come and go, and strong stone would topple to the ground; arches, and buttresses, and carved gargoyles would all crumble away into dust. Like all things, a once proud elven castle barely stood with half its exterior wall collapsed. It once likely commanded a nation of elves hidden among these mountains, but now its subjects were ghosts and its only occupants wore Kaedweni gold.

Harry, Hermione, and Viktor fell further back in the crowd, as the Redanian soldiers took point on the final stretch, and were the first to meet the Kaedweni delegate at a small drawbridge, over a moat that had long since dried up.

Longbottom greeted a man who appeared to be the leader of the Kaedweni troop, and the man responded in kind, in tense, but respectful tones. The mages, as mages often did, ignored the discussion between the two opposing sides, and steered their horses right across the drawbridge, to a gate that had long since seen better days.

"Come on," said Hermione, "we'll leave the soldiers to play their little war-games by themselves."

Viktor would never disagree with Hermione, and Harry himself saw no reason to stay, so he shrugged and they moved along, following in the mages' wake. Crossing through the gate, they brought their horses to a halt in an expansive courtyard, where several large, yellow-and-black tents had been pitched up.

"As I live and breathe, is that _Hermione Granger_!?" a jovial, Aedirnian-accented voice shouted, prompting the trio to search among the tents, to see where it had come from.

It didn't take long to find out, for an obscenely handsome, golden-haired man in stylish black robes nearly charged out from one of the tents with a charming, pearly grin plastered across his face. Hermione, it seemed, didn't share the newcomer's enthusiasm, dourly glaring in his direction with the intensity of a woman looking to kill.

"Gilderoy," she greeted with surprising neutrality, especially considering that the murderous look had not yet left her eyes.

"At your service, my dear," Gilderoy replied, the shine of his teeth nearly blinded Harry. "Ah! And this must be your bodyguard! I'd heard you'd employed one after your path diverged from Ilona's," he continued genially with a friendly nod to Viktor.

"I did," Hermione returned, tersely.

Finally, the Adonis turned to Harry, and gasped theatrically. "My word! Those swords! Those eyes! That _medallion_! Could you be... a _witcher_?"

"Got it in one," Harry said. "And you are?"

"Me? I am a scoundrel, a scallywag, a proper scamp and rogue!"

" _Dana Méadbh_!" Hermione interrupted, and her cheeks reddened when all three men cast her confused looks. "Forgive me, it's been a trying day. Allow me to introduce you two: Witcher Harry of the Bear School, this is Gilderoy Lockhart, sorcerer and all-around cadge."

"Ha-ha! Too right you are, my dear. But, hark, there's an even greater surprise here for you than me, Lady Hermione."

"Is there?" Hermione asked disinterestedly.

Lockhart nodded profusely. "Why, absolutely! It's just around the corner; if you'll wait here, I shall go fetch it presently."

With one more flash of those luminescent teeth, the golden-haired man rushed off in the direction of the mages' tents. Hermione sighed, looking relieved to have finished conversation with Lockhart, but the frown that appeared afterward suggested she was still quite sour.

"Care to tell me who that was?"

"Gilderoy Lockhart, as I said," Hermione grunted.

"Well, _Gilderoy Lockhart_ seems to have gotten under your skin."

"It's a stupid story, mine and his, one entirely about the stupidity of youth," she said, and groaned when it appeared she'd only further piqued the witcher's curiosity. "I was young, and only just barely had grasp of my abilities then, when I met Lockhart."

"Uh-huh," said Harry, patting Sleipnir on the crest of his head, silently urging him to wait.

"He seemed smart, charming, a true gentleman, and it didn't hurt that he was gorgeous. It was a stupid, schoolgirl's crush."

"I see where this is going," Harry said, quickly losing all interest. It was a classic story: an experienced man embarks on a relationship with young, naïve girl, and when he's done with her, throws her away like last week's refuse. All too common, really.

"Well, you'd be wrong, then," Hermione said, with the type of conviction that suggested she'd quickly read Harry's mind. "We almost 'embarked on a relationship', but any fond feelings were short-lived: I found within days that he was a horrible dullard, who barely understood the basics of magic, and a scoundrel. I can abide a scoundrel; what I cannot abide is an idiot."

Harry chuckled; Hermione wasn't one to mince her words, and while she was not always correct, her unswerving conviction was enough to convince him that this Lockhart fellow was indeed an idiot.

"And now your idiot has left us here, waiting on him."

Hermione scoffed. "Leave it, we'll go and find ourselves another spot."

"And Lockhart?"

"He can go fall on a sword," she declared haughtily, "anything he has to show us is not worth seeing."

Harry and Viktor glanced at each other and gave a commiserating shrug, respectively. Harry grasped his reigns and faced forward once more, slowly urging Sleipnir into a slow walk. Hermione followed behind, and Viktor took up the rear. And just as they were about to pick up into a trot, Harry picked up Lockhart's voice behind them:

"Hermione, dear! Where are you going!?"

"Ignore him," said Hermione, lowly, "just pretend you didn't hear him."

But another voice called out, feminine, lovely, like the soft warbling of a songbird, and Hermione immediately stopped dead. Haltingly, she turned back, and with her, Harry and Viktor did as well.

Standing next to Lockhart, as a throng of soldiers and sorcerers passed, paying them no mind, was a breathtaking woman dressed in the finest emerald frock, which contrasted splendidly with her gold-foil hair, and her delicate, ivory skin. Crystalline, azure orbs roved about the group, first on Hermione, and then on Harry, with an electric spark of recognition between the two that nearly made the witcher's heart beat out of his chest. Harry understood the rule perfectly: sorceresses, near one and all, were beautiful. Yet in a world of these alluring women, this one's beauty was delicate and inestimable. Hang the man that dared claim Francesca Findabair was the most beautiful woman to grace the world, when the one in front of him walked it as well.

For one moment, Harry spied Hermione looking on, as dumbly as he himself and her bodyguard did, and in the next, she was gone. She practically vaulted off the saddle, rushed over to the woman, and nearly tackled her in a hug.

Harry raised an eyebrow, and looked to Viktor, who did not seem even remotely as surprised as he did, for clarification:

"That is Ilona Laux-Antille. She was Lady Hermione's... mentor prior to ven I met her."

Harry, not unlike Hermione earlier, now froze. Ilona Laux-Antille, the other name-without-a-face that, after a pogrom, snatched a lowly witcher back from the cusp of death. After that many years, the two stood in front of him, perhaps entirely unaware of the debt of blood he owed them both.

"Should..." Harry started, mouth suddenly feeling all-too-dry, "...should we go over to them?"

Viktor nodded curtly, and took the reigns of Hermione's abandoned mare, as well as his own. "I think it is better to go over than to sit here like two oglers."

"I think you're right," agreed Harry, and the two men trotted over to where the others stood. Hermione was gushing about some book she read, and her mentor smiled fondly at her, with the patient air of a mother listening to her child discuss their studies.

"But that's enough about me; what about you? Why are you here?" Hermione finished up breathlessly.

"I was in Kaedwen, stopping by at Ard Carraigh, when Headmaster Dumbledore visited the King in hopes to secure a few men. Curious, I got to talking with the professor, and when I heard a Djinn had been stolen, and you were helping track down the thieves, I decided it would be best if I came along as well. So, I traveled with Gilderoy here, who is part of the group of sorcerers from Ban Ard that Headmaster Dumbledore selected himself."

Hermione grinned brightly. It wasn't a mocking, or sardonic grin in any way, it was pure, effusive pleasure in having her old mentor around. It was a look that certainly suited the chestnut-haired Aen Seidhe.

"Well, whatever the reasoning is, I'll be glad to have you along," she said, and then her face turned characteristically serious. "But I need to talk to you, then. Soon, and in confidence."

Ilona furrowed her brows with an unasked question, and Harry felt as confused as the woman looked: Hermione only just found out that her mentor had decided to come along for the journey, and suddenly had something serious and urgent to tell her?

"Certainly, my dear," Ilona said softly, "we'll talk in my tent, won't we?"

Lockhart, suddenly seeming to sense tension in the air, made awkward and hasty introductions. "Lady Ilona, this is Vector, Lady Hermione's bodyguard, and Witcher Henry, of the Bee School."

"Yes," said the blonde woman, "I know them both."

"You do?" asked Hermione, casting a questioning glance to Harry, and then back to her mentor, but Ilona did not seem keen on elaborating:

"Come, Hermione," she said, instead, "I expect we'll be leaving soon, so we shall speak in my tent while we have the chance." Immediately, the woman turned on her heel and waved for Hermione to follow, in the direction of several large and finely decorated tents, that Harry assumed belonged to the mages.

Lockhart, left alone with Harry and Viktor, seemingly decided to have some fun with his new companions, for he turned around with a bright smile on his lips. "Alright, lads, now that the ladies are off, I think it's time to get to know each other bett-" he stopped suddenly, noticing Viktor had already taken his horse, as well as Hermione's, and started cantering off in the other direction.

Shocked that someone might not want to spend time with him, the sorcerer stared at the retreating bodyguard's back for a very long time, before turning his hopeful gaze on Harry. The witcher stared back for a short span, and then he too turned away from Lockhart, completely uninterested in the prospect of being in his company.

He left the sorcerer behind, looking only slightly dejected, and made his way to any small, quiet alcove the castle could provide, where he might wait until the Redanian and Kaedweni soldiers decided to move out.

* * *

 **A/N:** Chugging along, almost done with this arc.

No real chapter notes for this one; I'll see you guys for the next chapter.

Thanks for reading,  
Geist.


	10. TLW, Part 6

**Summary** : An sorceress contracts a witcher to capture a djinn, and everyone who has read The Last Wish collectively cringes at my lack of originality.

* * *

THE LAST WISH

* * *

VI

* * *

"Witcher," someone said from behind him, "I should like to speak with you."

Harry turned, and saw a forest of green in the sorceress's dress, and the snow-white of her skin, and finally met ocean eyes and rose-quartz lips. His mouth went dry, and he looked around for someone, anyone to save him from the entrancing beauty.

They were, to Harry's dismay and complete lack of surprise, alone. He had, after all, chosen this very spot so that no one would bother him until the camp was ready to move out.

Feeling a fool, the mutant stayed silent so that he might be thought sullen, rather than open his mouth and prove himself a dunce. Deciding that was the more prudent choice, the witcher nodded curtly at the woman, before returning to the straps and belts that tied his saddle to Sleipnir.

"He's a beautiful one," said the sorceress, stepping up to the horse.

"Lady Hermione's choice," Harry replied. "I've no eye for these things."

Ilona smiled lightly, and turned to the horse, all the while distracting the witcher with her fresh forest-and-flowery-glade aroma. "Hermione has always had quite good taste. In horses, in clothes, in witchers," she laughed at Harry's flummoxed expression. "Come now, don't frown like that, surely you haven't already forgotten our first meeting?"

Harry pulled the saddle off his stallion's back, and rested the cumbersome leather on an old, but sturdy fence nearby. He fished into his saddlebags for a moment, and found what he was looking for, a coarse brush, for combing Sleipnir's coat. He only spoke when he returned to the animal and the sorceress.

"I remember," he answered, and set about the task of brushing the horse's flank.

"Yet, Hermione still has no idea who you actually are," Ilona replied, running a delicate hand through golden locks.

"You know the rumours of mages. Wouldn't you take precaution, see the measure of me before admitting you've a life debt, had I done the same for you?"

"True enough," agreed the blonde, "many of my colleagues would use that debt against you. Schemers and connivers, the lot of them."

"Really," deadpanned Harry.

"Don't take it for condemnation; just because I won't exploit your debt to me, does not mean I'm any better than the rest of them. However, there's more moral fibre in Hermione's little toe than there is to be found in the sum totality of all mages elsewise."

"So I'm quickly learning."

"She is quite the little scholar," said Ilona, flipping her hair from one shoulder to another, "came to me with quite a theory about a town in the mountains called Wezyn."

"Mhm," Harry said, feigning disinterest as he continued brushing the stallion's coat with the coarse-haired brush in slow, diagonal strokes.

"And she tells me you were instrumental in discovering the information that would lead us there," the blonde continued, now standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the witcher. "Tell me: is your source reliable?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know the man who gave us the information, but the person who told us to meet with him? I'd trust them with my life."

"So, I'm to assume that means you can't verify the validity of this rumour completely?" the sorceress asked, turning to face the witcher. When Harry met her eyes, he was delighted to find they were not just blue, but contained scattered emerald flecks and ripples, washing around her pupils like an ocean swell.

Dumbly, the witcher shook his head.

"I see. I suppose, then, that I'll have to recommend we split into parties to comb the mountain."

"If that suits you."

"But," said the sorceress, "I do have some sway in the proceedings, Witcher. I shall recommend that we send one party toward Wezyn, and it will include you and Hermione."

"And what about you?"

Ilona pondered the question a moment, and walked to the fence Sleipnir's saddle lay on, and half-sat, half-leaned against its wooden top-rail. "I'll be the herring. Everyone will want to follow me, including Vestibor's pet sorcerer, one-"

"-Lucius Malfoy," Harry took the words from the blonde's mouth. "I've had the honour."

"Mmm, a dubious one, no doubt," gibed Ilona sourly.

"Take it you're not a fan?"

"Of course not. The man is odious. Complete scum."

"True, he's not an easy man to like, but why the rush to lead him away from Wezyn?"

A mercurial laugh played softly, pulling back soft, rose petal lips until little pearls showed. "Witcher," she scolded fondly, as though Harry was a particularly slow child and she was a teacher who had learned to like him regardless, "you can't possibly believe that Vestibor and Dagread agreed to this search, just to give the djinn back to the University. No king is that soft-hearted."

Harry exhaled softly through his nose. He might have expected this: the petty squabbling and easily wounded pride that often characterised royalty and jumped-up nobles. This was why witchers generally avoided politics; a king's favour was like a glut of fine wines and gout-inducing foods, his wrath like disease and starvation. The prudent witcher would do well to avoid all extremes.

"I had my suspicions: Lady Hermione was worried about the prospects of us gaining the infantrymen from either side."

"For good reason," remarked the sorceress, "I'd imagine both kings nearly shouted the envoys out of their throne rooms before learning about the Djinn. And when they heard about that, they were only too happy to send soldiers and mages."

"To thieve the djinn's lamp from the original thieves before we can find it and return to Ban Ard."

A snap of the fingers. "Precisely!" Ilona exclaimed in time with her snap. "Having a spirit that grants you any wish is quite the weapon to hold over your enemies. Fortunately, the sorcerers and sorcereresses Dagread sent aren't loyal to him; they'll never take something that belongs to Albus Dumbledore, and give it to some king."

"But Malfoy?"

"Loyal only to coin. And _no one_ pays better than the Redanian King. If we're not careful with him, he truly is liable to steal the lamp from right under our noses when we recover it. So... our strongest option is to lead Vestibor's bulldog away from Wezyn."

"I see," replied Harry. "But why tell me all this?"

"Because, Master Witcher," said Ilona, "Hermione seems to think you a good man. 'A man with a powerful moral imperative', she said. And you owe her, as well as myself, your life. I can think of no man more trustworthy than that."

The sorceress softly patted Sleipnir on the snout, who whickered approvingly at the ministrations. Then, she turned, her emerald frock swishing away like the tops of the forest on a windy morning. Without a look back, the sorceress glided back toward the numerous tents, leaving Harry alone once more.

Not long after, Hermione rushed over and stopped at the fence, hair windblown and expression insistent:

"Harry," she entreated quickly, "we're to move out soon."

The witcher hopped up from his perch on an overturned bucket. "Right. Where to?"

"The neutral zone. We're to learn exactly where they intend on sending us."

"Neutral zone?" Harry questioned, and then looked up toward a hulking, unmarked canvas tent set up near the gate. "Suppose it's that thing, then?"

The brunette nodded. "Right in one. The Redanians and Kaedwenis have gathered there, and since we're not drowning in poor infantry blood, they appear to be cooperating. For now, at least."

"Good. Then let's get our orders and head out before the situation deteriorates," Harry said, checking leather knotted around the fence if he had tied Sleipnir's reins adequately.

"You read my mind, Master Witcher."

They walked along in silence through rapidly emptying alleys and nooks created by the tents and confined spaces. It bothered the witcher; Ilona must have told Hermione about her true first meeting with Harry by now, and yet the elf didn't comment on it at all. Instead, she wore a lazy but flattering little smile that could have meant everything or nothing.

"I suppose Lady Ilona has told you, then?" Harry asked, eager to break the quiet.

Hermione blinked, apparently broken from some reverie. "Told me what?" she chirped, completely oblivious to the situation. Involuntarily, Harry frowned: Lady Ilona had wasted little time mentioning to Harry that she and Hermione saved him all those years earlier, and she hadn't even deigned to inform her supposed protege of it?

What game was the sorceress playing at?

"Never mind," grunted Harry, again adopting the look and mannerism of a morose swordsman. Hermione cast him a dubious glance, but soon returned to her own world, as they crossed a tiny Kaedweni barracks crammed into one small corner of the castle.

On they continued, as one passerby became two, as two became four, as four became twelve, as twelve became a seething horde of soldiers and sorcerers crushed together. They shouted and bellowed, drank and spat and stomped in the mud like swine. Hermione gored the giddy throng with an appropriately disgusted glare, and dragged Harry along to the outskirts of the crowd, where the two met Viktor a few tents away, as he lounged and people-watched on a large, upturned rock that had been part of a buttress in its glory days.

"Viktor," greeted Hermione breathlessly. "Have they reached a consensus yet?"

Viktor nodded slowly. "Yes. They have all agreed Lady Ilona has best tits on The Continent," he said blandly. Hermione sucked in a breath, outraged, "and that Lady Hermione has best arse," the elf immediately deflated, righteous anger replaced by righteous embarrassment:

"I ought to hex the bollocks off the lot of them," she groused, vainly adjusting her jacket to cover more of her bottom.

"I vould kill them for you," said Viktor lightly, "but am afraid that vill risk the mission."

"How kind of you," Hermione drawled.

"Hang that," leered Harry with an appropriate amount of lechery, "Redanians and Kaedwenis... _agreeing_ on something? Keep them at it; it'll be the first time an arse has stopped a war."

Hermione's famous glare left the mocking, boorish soldiers and instead lanced its way through to her mocking, boorish companion. Harry raised up his arms in the universal sign of surrender: It was a small pleasure to fluster the elf, but the witcher was sensible enough to never truly spark the ire of a woman who could kill with a snap of her dainty fingers.

He turned back to Viktor. "Jokes aside, have we gotten any news?"

"Ve go north and east. To Wezyn, small town. Days from here, deep into mountain range."

"Wezyn?" droned Hermione, feigning ignorance. "They can't possibly believe we'll find something there, could they, Harry?"

Harry shrugged with an air of whimsy only the brunette would recognise. "We do what we must, Lady Sorceress."

"That we do, Master Witcher," said Hermione, oddly pensively, "that we do."

They did not tarry for long after receiving the news.

In fact, they only stayed at the ruined castle long enough for Harry and Viktor to scrounge up rations for the trip, while Hermione decompressed from the understandably stressing news that, alongside Redanian and Kaedweni troops, the dullard and scoundrel Gilderoy Lockhart would be accompanying them to Wezyn. Soon, the reformed trio gathered together with a small coterie of red-cloaked scouts just outside the ruined castle, and waited until Lockhart and the Kaedweni soldiers decided to show.

Many passed out from the blasted, crumbling gates, and down the bridge before their companions appeared, but when they did finally show, a bit of a furor came with them. Lockhart led a pure white stallion and marched out at the fore, insofar as a strut could be considered a march. His display slowed the Kaedweni soldiers behind him, and a group of sorcerers behind them, and still another group of Redanians behind them. Consequently, a bottleneck formed round the collapsed gate and created a minor crush that was punctuated with pushing, shouting, and stomping, all of which Gilderoy Lockhart blithely and obliviously ignored.

"I can't believe you were attracted to that man," Harry murmured lowly to the brunette sorceress, who had watched the whole sorry affair with a dismayed shake of her head.

Hermione rolled her eyes, pulled at her mare's reigns, and turned away from the dried-up moat. She cantered on ahead, evidently done with waiting for Lockhart to speed up. It seemed the Redanians agreed, when they also turned their horses to follow Hermione, as though she was their commander issuing a silent order.

With a shrug toward Viktor, one that was reciprocated by the sullen bodyguard, Harry too pulled away. Viktor fell in step with him, and even the Kaedweni soldiers soon began marching north; Lockhart, of course, only seemed to notice he was alone after he'd finished crossing the bridge. Fortunately, or unfortunately to Hermione, the wider group had not gotten far enough across the horizon to disappear, so the blond-haired sorcerer galloped, galloped a league onward until he caught up with and passed by the Kaedweni rear-guard.

When he caught up to the others, Lockhart fixed Harry with a megawatt grin, and nearly blinded the witcher. "My word, Master Witcher," he said jovially, "at least do have the courtesy to warn a man when he's being left behind."

"You seemed a tad preoccupied at the time, Master Sorcerer," Harry replied.

"True enough," grinned the sorcerer foolishly, as he patted his stallion's nape, "Leboida is a noble creature; he deserves some pomp and circumstance."

"Leboida? After the prophet?"

"Yes. It's a good name for a horse, don't you think?"

Harry shrugged noncommittally, and looked around for Hermione's bobbing, honey-brown head. He found her near the front of the pack, and eagerly awaited the first opportunity to extricate himself from his conversation with Lockhart. Soon he found his opportunity, when the road widened and the group spread apart, allowing Harry to make for greener pastures among Hermione and Viktor.

* * *

Even for late spring, the weather in the Kestrels was changeable at best. Like most journeys Harry had been on, it started well, with brisk weather, clear roadways north, and a veritable mountain of supplies. And like most journeys, it had all fallen apart spectacularly as they continued on. In a matter of days, the chilly, clear mornings turned into raging blizzards; the roads turned into steep, mouldering passes cut into sheer cliffsides; and the supplies had gone from mountain to ant hill.

They traversed all the hazards with practised ease. However, by the time they were halfway to Wezyn, the group had likely frozen twelve times over. As such, it was a great boon for morale when the group finally reached the North Rock, just a day's ride out from the sheltered village.

"We're at a geothermal spot," Hermione had observed quietly, looking down at the valley. "Nice, but not entirely hospitable for settlers."

"It's a damn sight better than freezing our arses off in a bloody cave," groused the leader of the Kaedweni troupe, a quick-tempered man who went by Dorcan.

"Aye," agreed the Redanian leader, Baron von Steuen. "And a valley like this means hot springs. No better way to fight off frostbite than a hot soak."

Hermione nodded. "I agree. Master Witcher, Gilderoy, shall we make camp here for the night?"

"Yes. Rest. Let's," said Lockhart, very quickly.

"Don't see why not," Harry agreed.

And so, the party took their rest, gently prodding their horses down past a rugged crags and jutting rocks into the valley below. They set up camp quickly, nailing down spikes into the hard earth and hoisting separate tents for soldiers of either nation. While Harry bunked with the Redanians, the attendant mages also set their own tents: a modest one for Hermione and Viktor, and a luxurious tent of purple-dyed canvas with inlaid gold stitching that wreathed round the sides for Lockhart.

Harry could have cursed his miserable lot in life, where an idiot sorcerer slept in silks while he languished in one claustrophobic corner of a military tent, surrounded by men who stank of sweat and iron, but he didn't. Really, it wasn't so bad. Once the Baron and his men set up a fast, rip-roaring fire in a display of the usual Redanian efficiency, they allowed the witcher a seat by the Baron and the bonfire, as well as an equal portion of their thin gruel.

Certainly, some of them eyed the mutant suspiciously, but they ultimately accepted it. One would be hard-pressed to find a more skilled swordsman than a witcher, and a military commander would be a fool to ostracise such a valuable addition. It was one more reason for Harry to spend his time among the regulars over haughty mages, who would sniff at anyone unable to open portals or kill a man with a wave of the hand, and taunt them with a mocking cry of 'ordinary'.

So, feeling righteous in his own ordinariness, Harry ate the soup with gusto and exchanged stories with Baron von Steuen and his men, trading tales of hunts for basilisks and wyverns for accounts of marches and skirmishes. And soon enough, they all chortled and swaggered about like brothers meeting after a long time away from each other.

And just as Harry had seemingly made friends for life, and regaled them with a particularly memorable contract for a Bruxa in Nazair, an intruder stole among them and stepped into the fore. Viktor stood, stone-faced, his bulky frame illuminated orange by the raging inferno beside him:

"Vitcher," he said, "Lady Hermione vishes to see you."

"And what is it that the Lady Sorceress wishes to see me over?"

"She vould not say. Please to come."

The soldiers all fell silent as Harry contemplated his response, and a collective groan went through the group when the witcher stood:

"Gentlemen," he said, "for now I take my leave of you. Try not to burn anything down while I've gone."

With that, he nodded to Viktor, who turned around and practically goose-stepped toward Hermione's tent, situated across a barren stretch of land, sat nearby a bubbling lake. Harry followed behind obediently, breathing in the fresh mountain air, and carefully adjusting the the strap of his sword-belt across his chest. When they arrived, Harry immediately took notice of several voices discussing something important within the tent; Viktor marched over to the flaps and wrenched one aside, indicating for the witcher to enter first.

There were carpets laid out all across the floor, a few chairs, two bedspreads in either corner of the tent, and several, crystal-tipped, statuesque rods that circled a runic pentagram, where a grey-white phantom of Ilona Laux-Antille stood. In front of the megascope, stood both Hermione and Lockhart, concerned expressions on either's lips. Curious, the witcher wondered how Viktor and Hermione managed to carry all of their belongings, as their horses never seemed to be over-encumbered. But, before he could fall any further into his musings, the phantom spoke:

"Ah, Witcher, is that you?" she made a show of squinting whilst shading her eyes with a transparent hand.

"Aye, it's me."

Hermione turned and flashed Harry a hurried, but welcoming look, before turning back to the hologram. "Ilona, would you mind telling the witcher what you told us?"

"Certainly," said Ilona agreeably. "I won't lie, and say I truly trusted your source, Master Witcher, because I didn't. But, since you'd heard these rumours and I can't discount any information received, I decided to consult my own little birds."

"And?" asked Harry.

"What I've learned is troubling."

"How so?"

"My own source receives regular updates from the mountain towns," explained the shade, "two men did show up in Wezyn, dressed in fine robes and carrying carts of gold."

"Did they provide any description of the newcomers?" asked Lockhart suddenly.

"Surprisingly, no," answered Ilona. "Why?"

The blond man shook his head. "No major reason. I thought we might be able to narrow down the thieves if we could get a proper description."

Harry glanced at the sorcerer, only slightly taken aback. It wasn't an particularly clever or impressive suggestion, but the witcher had thought Lockhart incapable of even that.

"You're right, Gilderoy, but unfortunately, there were no descriptions," Ilona replied, and returned her attention to the witcher. "Soon after those two arrived, several more men appeared in town. Mercenary types, also dressed in finery. Since then, my source has heard nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing at all. And the informant was very punctual. They suspect something must have happened after the mercenaries arrived."

"You suspect foul play?"

"I do."

"Then we'll be careful. I'll inform Baron von Steuen and Master Dorcan to have their men at the ready for when we reach the village."

"Thank you, Master Witcher," said the phantom.

"If that will be all..." Harry started, only to be cut off by Hermione:

"It is for now, but I would like to meet after you've informed the soldiers of their tasks. I have a matter to discuss with you."

The witcher nodded tersely and turned away, exiting the way he came. Outside, Harry shambled over to the Kaedweni troop, all of whom eyed him suspiciously when he told Master Dorcan to have his men at the ready, and then made his way over to the Redanians, all of whom whooped and roared in glee when Harry told The Baron the same. They invited him to stay for more drinks and soldier's fare, but the cat-eyed man excused himself, saying he was expected by the sorceress.

At that, another chorus of whoops arose, but for an entirely different reason, this time. Shaking his head fondly, Harry waved them off as he returned to Hermione's tent, poking his head inside:

"Lady Granger, you said you wished to discuss a priv—" the witcher blinked. His head swiveled right, then left, scanning the entire space. No one was in the tent: not Hermione, not even Viktor.

A tapping came at Harry's shoulder; he turned round to see the man he'd just been thinking about. "Vitcher," Viktor greeted.

"The sorceress. Where's she gone?"

The sullen bodyguard shrugged, and pointed south, away from camp. "She vished to go for valk. Vould not allow me to come vith."

"I see. Should I wait for her to come back?"

Viktor shrugged again. "I do not know. I think she is vaiting for you."

"Suppose I'll track her down then," decided Harry. Viktor nodded, and moved past the witcher into the tent he shared with the sorceress in question.

Left alone, Harry closed his his eyes, breathed deeply, and opened them again. Instantly, the world was brighter and cleaner than it was before. He glanced downward and saw small, heeled riding-boot tracks in the soft, loamy earth.

"There you are," he murmured to himself, and followed the tracks away from camp.

Along the way, the witcher crossed salt flats, and rocky, malformed steppes. Above those, Harry spied several great, bubbling ponds of thermic water roiling like stew, with soldiers tired from the day's march, cooking in the broth. Hermione had kept far away from the cauldrons, perhaps to avoid attention from the soldiers, and her tracks led past a copse of verdant firs. Harry marched forward, ducked under a low-hanging branch, and stopped at a lake. It was clear and calm, with one pale face poking out of the water at the other end, by a slew of smooth rock.

"Witcher," greeted the sorceress pleasantly.

"Lady Granger." Harry nodded, and stayed at the water's edge. "You said you wanted to speak to me?"

"Yes, I did. But do me a favour and get in the lake. A bath would do you good; you reek of leather and sweat, at the moment." She laughed at the witcher's expression. "What's the matter, Harry? Are you _shy_?"

Harry squinted at the sorceress's mockery; he wasn't shy, but he had thought a pureblooded elf like Hermione wouldn't be so forward. "No, I'm simply wondering what Viktor might think."

"Viktor?" Hermione asked, and feigned confusion. "What does he have to do with your taking a bath?"

The black-haired witcher let out a gust of breath. "You know very well what I mean."

"I do not," lied the sorceress.

Due to this contract, Harry had learned, if nothing else, that mages were a fickle lot. Sorcerers were frustrating, sorceresses more so, and Hermione Granger most of them all. They were overgrown children who were in dire need of a smack upside the head, one and all.

"It doesn't take a genius to see that the man is besotted with you," he said diplomatically, despite his thoughts.

The brunette pushed up in the water so that she could rest her arms on the rocks, distracting the witcher with the fact that the water now stopped just above her breasts. "Well," she harrumphed, "I believe my relationship with Viktor is one of client and contractor, not that of lovers. I'm free to pursue whomever I like. Which coincidentally, would _not_ be a witcher who stinks of drowner blood and fiend dung."

"Point taken," said the witcher, not especially stung by Hermione's insult. "But I am wondering what the point of all this is; you can't possibly have invited me here to take a bath."

"I have a quest for you."

"If it's to find a grail, I will get in the lake, specifically to drown you."

The sorceress went silent for a few moments, and then spoke again. "Can I not just wish to have a relaxing conversation while I have a bath?"

"That's it? You just want to have a conversation? But we've spoken at length many times."

"About nothing. Frivolities, at best. Witchers lead such interesting lives, and yet I know almost nothing of yours, though we've spent weeks together, now."

Harry sighed, resigned to his fate. There was nothing more the witcher hated discussing than himself, but the look in Hermione's eyes suggested he wouldn't be leaving without complying. So he loosened his sword belt and shrugged it off, and set about removing the rest of his clothes, laying them in a neat pile nearby the sorceress's discarded attire. When he entered the lake, which was wonderfully warm, he found Hermione eyeing him critically:

"What?" asked the witcher.

"I was expecting some novelty. Given the way humans talk of you lot, I had expected you to look different in some way. You're almost completely identical to the normal man, just with a few extra scars."

Harry remembered the old fishwives' tales. "You thought we had two cocks, didn't you?"

"I did not," Hermione huffed, though a blush stained her pale cheeks. "Tell me something about yourself," she said suddenly, likely just to change the subject from genitalia.

"Like what?"

"I don't know... surprise me."

Harry thought. "Kaer Almhult. It's the place where I was trained: a bleeding ice cube in the winter and an inferno in the summer. The beds are hard; our mentor says it's good for the back, but you can't get more than four hours sleep. Which I suppose was all well and good because we'd be woken at five in the morning to train with swords, or practise signs and brew potions, or go fishing—"

"Fishing?" The sorceress interrupted, looking strangely disappointed. "That sounds rather mundane."

"Not in Skellige, where you can't go two hours without stumbling onto some aspiring pirate crew."

"Ah. Must be hard on a young boy."

Harry rubbed the his neck with a wet hand. "Yes and no. I don't remember much of my life before Kaer Almhult, so it was easier for me. Other boys were old enough to remember their families before they were brought to the fortress. That's harder, I reckon. And then there's the trial..."

"The Trial of the Grasses?"

"Before that, we're just normal boys training with swords and bows. No different than a page, or a knight's squire."

Hermione shifted uncomfortably. "I hear it's... it's terribly painful."

"Unimaginable. If you're lucky, you die. And most do," Harry said. "But enough about me. What about you?"

Hermione blinked, this time in real, not feigned, confusion. "What about me?" she asked.

"The limp. You said it was a troll. Care to share the full story?"

"There's not much to share," Hermione replied, with a shrug of slender shoulders. "When I was young, I got lost in the woods and stumbled into lair shared by two cohabitating trolls. The male troll decided I was to become his wife, while his housemate, a female troll, decided I was a threat trying to steal away her mate. Have I ever told you trolls are remarkably stupid creatures? Endearing, but _stupid_."

"No, but that goes without saying," Harry said good-naturedly.

"So, when her 'mate' was out, she took his club, and started chasing me. She got in a good whack before the other troll got back and defended me. It didn't matter, though, I'd already passed out from the pain. When I regained consciousness, I was back home in my own bed. My mother claimed a sorceress had saved me from the trolls and took the liberty of returning me home."

"Madame Laux-Antille?"

"Unfortunately, no," said Hermione. "I don't think the Scoia'tael would take too kindly to a human woman roaming freely at the edge of the world, no matter how saintly she may be. She'd be more likely to end up a pincushion for their arrows than save me."

"Did you ever find out who it was?"

The sorceress shook her head. "But let me ask you another question."

"Is this how 'conversation' works?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, is this how your idea of conversation works? Just ask each other awkwardly personal questions?"

"Yes." Hermione nodded with conviction.

Harry snorted. "Fine, ask away."

The brunette's mouth tightened into a line, and her jaw worked delicately, and soundlessly, as though she was steeling herself for the next question. "I know a town, Loc Eate. It's in the Gustfields, not but a few days ride from Novigrad," she said, with a coy not-quite smile. "Have you ever been?"

Harry would have laughed if he could; Ilona Laux-Antille was a beautiful snake. "I think you already know the answer to that, Lady Hermione."

"So, the truth comes out. That witcher who nearly died defending elves in pogrom... he was you."

"Did Madame Laux-Antille tell you?"

Hermione nodded slowly. "In the tent, before I let anyone else in."

The witcher stayed quiet, staring into the fog birthed by the steam of the lake instead of meeting his companion's eyes. But there was a ripple in the water, and a supple, naked body came to rest next to his own. Soft fingers caressed his chest, moving up from the sternum, to the smooth scar tissue over his heart.

"This was it," said Hermione, observing the old wound as though it was a particularly arresting passage in a book. "I remember now. This was where you took that arrow."

"Yeah, it was there. Not a half-bad shot, that Death Eater."

The elf continued to touch the scar, delicately and thoughtfully, like a bird's wing brushing against his skin. "Did you not trust me, all that while we spent together? Did you think I would scheme and blackmail, like every other sorceress, merely because you owed me a debt?"

"It wasn't because I didn't trust you."

"Are you sure?" Hermione pulled away and smiled; the witcher could not tell if she was truly hurt or making another one of her jests. "It's late, and we have a long journey ahead of us to Wezyn. I shall take my leave for now," she said abruptly, and stood, allowing the witcher the equivalent view of her that he'd given of himself not but a few minutes earlier. Pulling herself up onto the rocks, the sorceress whispered a quick spell that dried her body off of any excess moisture.

Harry turned away, granting the woman her dignity as she changed, at least.

Momentarily, a curtain of lovely brown fell over his eyes, and Harry looked up to see Hermione's amber eyes looking down at him with a sad little grimace, hair cascading down in wavy ringlets.

Caught off guard by the sorceress, the witcher jerked and felt a sharp, stinging pain in his forearm. Harry glanced down and took in a long, but shallow gash along his right arm, which he'd cut on a jagged piece of rock at the water's edge that the witcher could have sworn was not there prior.

"Are you okay?" she asked, grasped his arms, and clucked her tongue at the damage. "Let me take care of that," said the brunette, seemingly summoning a handkerchief out of the air, and once she was done cleaning the wound, she summarily dismissed back into the ether. She clasped her hands over the wound, and spoke an incantation, but her eyes remained solely fixed upon his own.

A soothing warmth washed over his arm, one that reminded him of parchment, freshly-cut grass, and memories that could not be his own. But as quickly as it came, it went, and Harry could only stare back at the elf, who lifted up her hands, and revealed his forearm without so much as a scratch on it.

"I shall see you tomorrow, Witcher," said the sorceress coolly.

Turning away, she slipped into the cover of the trees and back on the path to camp, leaving the witcher behind, utterly befuddled by it all.

* * *

They hit the trail hard the next morning, not sparing the horses an ounce of reprieve. For the first time in what felt like months, Harry kept his distance from Hermione and her bodyguard, and melted into the background with the Redanian soldiers and Baron von Steuen. The Redanians were good company, still exchanging jokes, stories, and even sword fighting tips they'd picked up over the years, but the witcher found his gaze ever-returning to the sorceress's back.

The soldiers snickered at the suddenly distracted witcher, Baron von Steuen offered his condolences, and even Lockhart said something stupid about the 'sickness of young love', but he heard nothing from the sorceress. Not once did she turn around; not once did she spare him a glance.

That day, the first time Harry saw her face was when the thatch-roofed houses of Wezyn appeared over a jagged cliff and beyond a lazy stream that passed through a dale thick with evergreens. They stopped at the edge of the mountainside, and Hermione turned in her saddle, her eyes falling upon his own:

"We're nearing, and I can't see any activity from here. Perhaps it would be wise to arm ourselves now?"

The Baron fiddled with his curled moustache, and exhaled deeply. "I don't think it wise to simply charge an armed regiment into the town. I'd recommend scouts or trackers first. What say you, Master Dorcan?"

The bearded Kaedweni nodded severely. "I agree with the Redanian. We've only searched this area on a lark, anyway; there's no need to scare the smallfolk with tipped spears and longswords."

"Very well," said Hermione. "Then tell me: who shall you send out into the valley, first?"

"I can spare my two scouts," said the Baron.

"And what of you, Master Dorcan?"

"Aye, I can spare one, but only one. Me regiment has no other trackers."

"Three is a fair number," mused the sorceress, "but I'd like to have a look for myself. Viktor, would you mind going with them?"

The bodyguard looked anything but keen on it. "Forgive me. I vould not mind, but I am no good at staying hidden."

"Very well. Witcher, what of you?" Hermione addressed Harry for the first time that day, which only mildly startled the Bear School Witcher:

"Huh? What about me?"

"Would you be willing to join the scouts on the way to town?" She clarified once more, and even smiled the tiniest bit when met with a curt nod; yet, despite that, there was friction to her words. "Good, come to me a moment." Harry acquiesced to her command and stepped over to the sorceress's side, only for Hermione to mumble an elder speech incantation, and for white-hot pain to lance through his brain. "It's a spell," she explained, "that, when activated, allows me to see what your eyes see. I'll be able to relay all the information to our companions as though I was there with you."

Harry still held his head, though the pain had long passed. "Right, I understand. We should move before the sun gets any higher."

"Aye," the Baron agreed, and then whistled shortly and shrilly. "Nowak! Dagnar! You're with the witcher; get your arses moving!" There were two meek 'Aye, Commander!'s from within the tight circle of Redanians, and two mousy men scurried out from the pack. They stopped momentarily, facing the witcher, and saluted him, then they scampered over to his side.

Meanwhile, Master Dorcan called his own scout quietly. A tall, thin man in rusted chainmail and yellow tatters drifted out from his own pack of militiamen with murder in his bitumen eyes, making a lethal dance out of the walk to the witcher and the Redanian scouts. His every step creaked and jingle-jangled softly in the mid-morning breeze until the scout stopped a mere arm's length from the witcher, and stared at him in greeting.

"Harys," said his commander. "He doesn't speak much, but he's as good as help gets."

"Thank you, Master Dorcan," said Hermione, "He'll try not to break any of them."

Harry ignored her. "You know how this works, then. Leave your horses, we go down into the valley on foot. Any objections?"

"No, sir!" the two Redanians shouted, and Harys shook his head, forfeiting his right to object. Harry turned on foot immediately, and the scouts turned with him.

The valley awaited.

* * *

A/N: Sorry for the wait, but it's been a busy couple of weeks. More to come soon.

Thanks for reading,  
Geist.


	11. TLW, Part 7

**Summary** : An sorceress contracts a witcher to capture a djinn, and everyone who has read The Last Wish collectively cringes at my lack of originality.

* * *

THE LAST WISH

* * *

VII

* * *

The brook criss-crossed the valley lazily, a murder of crows cried overhead, and the four men scattered through the forest like Zanguebarian jungle predators. And, inside one of them, an unwanted fifth guest. The pain was less intense now, a mild twinge preferred to head-splitting stabbing, and Hermione soon moved into his head yet again:

" _Witcher_ ," the sorceress's voice rang through the gray matter and bounced at the dome prison of his cranium. " _I trust nothing serious has happened as a result of this spell_?" Harry opened his mouth to retort, but was instead cut off by the elf. " _You needn't speak it. Merely think whatever you wish to say, and I shall hear it._ "

Harry ducked low when Harys did, looking to the Kaedweni and seeing the spark of curiosity in his otherwise soulless eyes. The yellow scout raised up his left hand, encased in a lobstered gauntlet, and formed a fist; Nowak and Dagnar ducked on command.

 _Aside from the skull-crushing pain? Nothing serious,_ he gibed sourly.

" _When has a little pain ever hurt anyone?_ " asked Hermione innocently, fully aware of the irony in her words. " _It's a pretty little forest, for a pretty little town. I can certainly see the appeal of it for the thieves._ "

 _Yet we get ever-closer to the town, and all I hear are crows._

" _Not a good sign,_ " agreed Hermione.

Whatever Harys saw must have passed, for the glint in his eyes had faded, and he raised his other hand, this one gloved in a simple leather vambrace. Pointing forward, the Kaedweni indicated the makeshift troop to scurry forward past great oaks and strong elms.

" _Your eyesight is incredible_ ," Hermione marveled, breaking an increasingly tense silence, " _it's an entirely different world from mine_."

Harry smiled grimly. A different world indeed. Prior to the Trial, he had terrible sight: he would bump into every wall, trip over every stair, and stub his toe on every piece of furniture, when he wasn't wearing a pair of owlish spectacles that consumed half his face. At Kaer Almhult, the other 'recruits' exploited the weakness ruthlessly: knocking off those glasses and laughing as he wildly swung at oblong shapes and colours.

" _And I imagine you got your revenge once your eyesight was as sharp as a cat's?_ " Hermione asked, evidently able to read his memories as well as his thoughts. " _Of course_ ," she scoffed immediately, " _I am sharing your consciousness, after all._ "

The witcher exhaled softly. There was no revenge to be had. He had taken well to the mutations, yet more than half the boys who knocked his spectacles died screaming with fire in their veins. A mutant might feel nothing for their deaths, but only a monster would take pleasure in it all.

Hermione abruptly fell silent, allowing the Bear to return to the task at hand.

Harys silently signaled through a convoluted dance of gesticulations that the village neared, and they were to split and each get a handle of the hustle and bustle of the town. He was to drop off east, while Dagnar and Nowak scurried west, and Harys continued forward.

" _Can you hear anything_?" Hermione asked as Harry turned his back on his companions.

 _No. And I should be hearing something by now; we're not far at all._

He skirted around plants and bushes, ducked through brambles and low-hanging branches, and popped out at the east end of town. Camouflaged as he was by the flora of the forest, Harry took some time to gather his bearings. The houses in the distance were longer than they were tall, often set upon stilts, and were covered in grass, not thatch, as he had thought before. The sod houses were everywhere, in fact, but for the holdfast Harry stood nearest to: a dome-like structure of treated timber and roofed with the more conventional reed-thatch.

And yet, though the witcher had a perfect view of homes and small, winding streets, he neither heard nor saw another soul in the village.

" _Curious_ ," mused Hermione, taking in the empty village as Harry did. Out of the corner of his eye, a scrap of yellow hidden among green caught the witcher's attention, and soon a lobstered gauntlet raised up. The fingers closed in a fist, yet the thumb remained out, proudly pointing upward. " _What on earth does that mean?_ "

 _It means our friend hasn't seen anyone on his end, either._

Harry returned the gesture, then pointed at the holdfast, signaling to meet. He was immediately rewarded with another thumbs-up, and Harys standing to his full, mountain-like stature. The witcher stood as well, to step over the last bushes and branches that blocked his way into the town proper. The man in yellow and the man in blue met outside the double-doors of the town gathering hall, where they found two men in red scampering their way from the other direction.

"Nothing," wheezed Nowak. "Couldn't see anyone."

Harry grimaced. "That's because there's no one here. Maybe we might not see anybody, but you can't fool a witcher's ears. I can't hear a heartbeat, a voice, even footsteps. Near as I can tell, it's deserted."

"We should tell our commanders," Harys spoke for the first time since they met with a rough, cracked timbre.

"Aye," agreed the Redanians.

Harry nodded. "They already know. The sorceress has seen everything I have. She'll report back to the Baron and Master Dorcan."

" _And so I shall,_ " Hermione hummed from somewhere within his skull, and promptly withdrew from it.

"They'll be arriving soon," said the witcher. "For now, we wait."

* * *

As soon as the troops arrived, they were given a quick rest from their marching, with Lockhart and the Kaedwenis retreating to the warmth and spaciousness of the holdfast, and the Redanians to the cozy comfort of a recently-abandoned inn. Left out in the cold were the sorceress, her bodyguard, and the witcher they'd both dragged into their adventure.

"It's all so very strange," the sorceress said, more to herself than her companions. "Two men show up one day, several more the next, and now an entire town has been abandoned."

"I vould vager they did not have the... vanderlust, how you say," quipped Viktor, more lightheartedly than Harry thought the dour man capable.

Harry shrugged. "There's a whole bunch of abandoned houses here. I'll search them for clues; you two should head over to the inn and get some rest while you can."

"What? Sit in an inn with boors doing nothing? I think not," sniffed Hermione.

"Have it your way. It'll mostly be you following me around while I follow tracks in mud and shite for several long hours in the sun. Unless you're a tracker, too. Then you can get in on the fun."

The sorceress laughed nervously. " _Actually_ , it just happens I do have a matter to attend to," she said, backing away from the other two slowly. "Viktor isn't an exceptional tracker, but he can certainly help you more than I ever could. _Va faill_ , witcher," she finished, abandoning all pretense and trotting away. Viktor looked between his retreating boss and the witcher, and promptly jogged after the woman. They disappeared around a bend and past a house, and neither returned.

"Ploughing southerners," Harry grumbled to himself, "always chasing after a woman's arse over buckling down and getting work done," though, in truth, had Harry been in Viktor's place, he would have done exactly the same: they'd all agreed by popular vote that it was a fine arse to chase.

Sighing, the witcher turned round and faced the nearest house, one of those sod-covered boathomes so favoured this far north. He walked over to a crude, but functional door, where he reached out a hand to touch the soft grass growing atop the low-hanging and steep gable roof and pulled a few roots out. After rubbing them in his hands for a moment, Harry pushed the door open, and stepped inside.

With the exception of exposed beams and timber, the house wasn't entirely different to the common Redanian household. It was a single room, split into two by a thin plank of wall, by which shelves of dried vegetables and herbs. Opposite the shelves was a kitchen table with a haunch of slightly rancid goat, seasoned and prepared to enter a stew on a stove that had long gone cold.

Squinting at the strange occurrence, Harry looked around for any signs of struggle or rushed behaviour, but only found a pile of shifted dust from the floor nearby the stove. And that could have meant anything: from a person fall, to a sack of grain being shifted from one place to another. The witcher passed round the table, and went into the accompanying bedroom, where an unremarkable nightstand stood next to a bed with mussed sheets.

Whatever happened was sudden enough that they left a meal out in the cold and unprepared, but gave them time enough not to rush out the door. And there was near no chance that whomever lived in that house was attacked, given the lack of any signs of struggle or destruction within the house. It was as if they had just disappeared.

Shaking his head, Harry left that house and moved to the next. Inside, he found more troubling signs: a bath had been drawn, but unused, and was bone cold to the touch. In the next, a dress lay half sewn on a table, pin and threaded needle still stuck in it. All around the village, he found dinners half-made and chores half-done, with nothing to show for it.

Most, if not all tracks trod in a million directions, and most had been washed away by rains that had thundered through whilst the party made their way to Wezyn. Harry came close to giving up the search entirely around noon, were it not for a faint scent he caught in one of the few spacious, well-furnished boathouses.

"Honeysuckle," Harry murmured, identifying the perfume quickly from a little crystal flask of amber liquid.

It was faint, but strong enough that Harry could track it outside the house and north to the other end of the valley, where the mountain range rose once more. He followed his nose, as he did all those weeks ago in Oxenfurt, out into the woods, where sod boathouses and thatched holdfast were little more than a distant memory.

This was the witcher's element: with the blue sky above him and great elms surrounding him like soldiers in a phalanx. Here, at his core, he was a hunter, trapping down the dregs of animal kingdom and dispatching them with clinical grace. But the scent wound through the trees at the edge of the glade and righted itself back on the main road ringing the wooden pikemen of the forest.

The road wound and twisted along with the scent of honeysuckle for a mile until a stronger, more pungent scent assaulted the witcher's nose. Harry's lip curled, experienced with the odor due to his profession: decay. Off and to the northeast, back into the forest, the aroma of perfume mixed with the stench of rotting flesh.

Haltingly, Harry stepped off the main road once more, already three-quarters assured of what laid beyond the trees. The ground below was matted and uneven, as though several people has traveled this way multiple times, and the tracks has been preserved by the gargantuan trees above, blocking out any inclement weather. With every step forward, both the scent of perfume and putrefaction intensified a thousand-fold, and as Harry sidestepped one last formation of those silent warriors, he covered his nose.

At least, they had the decency to bury the villagers, but the courtesy only extended that far, if the massive, dirt-covered pit was anything to go by. And not but a moment later, the bear on Harry's chest jangled softly. The witcher grit his teeth and drew his silver sword:

 _An entire village slaughtered._ The thought of a different village butchered, their skin bubbling, melting, and combining after a conflagration in a dance hall, would not leave the witcher's mind. _An entire village slaughtered, and placed haphazardly into an unmarked burial pit. Prime location for a haunting._

The witcher stepped out of the shade of the trees with his silver bastard-sword at the ready, as the bear medallion jitters turned to tremors. Smoke descended over the pit, and swirled into sphere, black and fathomless, until it exploded outward into the shape of a child.

Harry recognised it immediately, and lowered his sword. "A night spirit? This early in the day?"

Unlike nightwraiths, night spirits were one of the few spectres Harry, and many other witchers, refused to hunt: the were the shades of children who died suddenly, but had such a powerful connection to the world that they remained. Never harmful, and almost always of sweet disposition, night spirits deserved pity and understanding, not hate and silver.

This one was likely a little girl, if the long strands of wispy black smoke around her head were sufficient to judge her by. She giggled softly and waved, confirming the witcher's suspicions.

"Now what shall I call you?"

The shadow-girl pointed to the ground by his feet, just left of the upturned soil of the mass grave. There, in the dirt, etchings were scraped from the ether itself, forming slowly into an S. Harry watched with interest as the next letters were carved in: a Y, an L, so on and so forth. When the writing finished, the witcher looked back to the girl and smiled:

"Hello, Sylvie," he greeted quietly, respectfully, and the girl waved back.

Night spirits were sweet, but they were also shy: a night spirit would rarely appear to a passing traveler without reason. "Have you something to show me?" Harry crouched low to question the little spectre. Another giggle and nod was his answer. "Show me the way, then, little one."

The spirit scampered over to the witcher and took one gloved hand in her own wispy one. It was surprisingly solid and human to the touch.

Then, she moved forward, leading Harry away from the grave of the lost and damned. The pit soon faded from memory, and the spirit took the young Bear deeper into the woods and closer to the looming mountain range.

Along they ran, up a beaten path cut into the mountainside, and to the mouth of a cave. Harry squinted at the darkness, and saw a long-necked passage that curved toward an interior antechamber he couldn't quite see into. The night shade pointed a small digit into the cavern and promptly disappeared into a puff of black smoke. His medallion no longer vibrated, but Harry could hear hurried movement within the cave, backed by wheezing breaths.

Slowly the witcher sheathed his silver blade, and moved the same hand a few inches over to rest on haft of his faithful Zerrikanian sabre. He half-crouched, half-stood, and stepped forward defensively, one arm covering easy access to vital organs, and a slow, sneaking pace at the feet. So, Harry traversed the neck, stumbled into the chamber, and with it, into heaven.

Gold. Silver. Jewels. All the treasure a man could want hoarded up in a cave as though a dragon were to roost there. Treasure chests of opal, sapphire, lapis lazuli and other precious stones mingled with sackfuls of crowns, tables of orens and fine gold jewelery. And that did not even include the bed of diamonds that damn near touched the ceiling of the cave.

"Halt! Who goes there!?" someone shouted. And there was the problem: in the centre of those riches was one man dressed in finery that might not have been out of place in Toussaint. "I asked: who goes there!?" A loaded crossbow met Harry from fifteen paces away.

"Witcher Harry," he replied, and tightened his group round the sword hilt.

But, instead, a smile appeared from under moustachioed lips and relief flashed across his face. "A witcher!? By the gods, our prayers have been answered! Apologies, master, your eyes left me afear'd, the way they glow and such."

"Prayers? Prayers for what?"

"For what? _For what_!? Did ye' not see the ploughin' army of the dead after us!?"

"I haven't seen an army of the dead," said Harry, crossing his arms. "What I did see, was a mass grave, laid over only days ago."

The news was met with a sigh, as the man before him dropped the crossbow with a frightful clang and collapsed on a silver-forged throne with an air of bone-shaking weariness:

"Aye," he spat, "his Archmaginificency's doing."

"Who?"

"The sorcerer. 'Come along, Rhaeler, you'll be rich, you'll have more gold than you can fathom, you'll drown in meat and mead and muff' he said. And I, like a bloody fool, agreed."

"It's not an every day thing, capturing a djinn. I would have been tempted, too," the Witcher mused honestly, looking wistfully at a plate of black pearls atop a solid gold dinner table.

Rhaeler looked up sharply. "You know of the spirit?"

"I do. As does a contingent of sorcerers, sorceresses, as well as a solid chunk of the Redanian and Kaedweni aristocracy, I'd wager."

"Fine. Whatever," grumbled the man. "You're ploughing welcome to the gold. Take what you like, and don't be shy: it's blood money and I want no part of it."

"Blood money. You mean the grave."

"Of course I mean the grave, have you seen another round here? Our wonderful leader asked that djinn to give us great riches and take it to a place where no one would look for us. Somehow, I don't think he meant for the spirit to land us in the middle of an occupied town, no matter how far from 'polite civilisation'."

"So what happened then?"

"We landed here, and the devil himself couldn't muck things up worse than we did. My stomach turns even thinking of it; you'd best ask the great magician yourself."

"And where is he?"

"Up the slopes, cowering where he thinks the spirits can't find him."

"Well, Rhaeler, you ought to take me to him," said the Witcher, with an air of finality. There was no attempt at resistance from Rhaeler; he exhaled tiredly, and nodded:

"Aye, s'pose I should. Someone should answer for this, and if not us, then who?"

 _Who indeed,_ the witcher wondered.

* * *

The sorcerer was handsome, or, at least, he was handsome once. He sat cross-legged by a cliff in dirty robes, rocking back and forth with epileptic fervour, barely viewing the world through half-lidded cerulean eyes that had long since seen sleep. Rhaeler had led Harry to this promontory, and the witcher immediately found reason to be wary: the stone spoke to him as he took his first step.

 _The ground here is unstable,_ Harry thought as they made their way to the sitting man, _it could give way any minute. Best to trad carefully._

Rhaeler stopped only feet away from the unwashed man, and Harry stopped only inches behind Rhaeler. Together, they gazed out on the scenery, Wezyn and surrounding environs, for a long while.

"You've brought someone," the sitting man said at length.

"A witcher."

The sorcerer laughed bitterly. "This is a jest, is it not? It's cruel, even for you."

"It's not a jest," Harry interrupted, and the sorcerer turned around wiping the fringe of his curly blond hair away so he could get a better look at the witcher. Rhaeler slowly backed away, so the two oddities could have their own, private conversation.

"Ha. So it's not. And you are?" he asked, apparently seeking a name.

"A witcher," Harry repeated Rhaeler's words, uninterested in giving the mage anything beyond his title and even less enthused with the prospect of learning the other man's name.

"I see. Well, witcher, I am a sorcerer. You needn't worry about my name, either; neither you nor your friends that have come to haul me away would recognise me even if I gave it to you," he said, and pointed back down to the village, where a few specks that could be construed as people milled about the town square.

Harry nodded. "I doubt that matters much. They've come looking for a thief, and you've a lot to answer for."

"So I do. A dead schoolmaster and a whole village that both Redania and Kaedwen claim as theirs. I suspect they'll squabble over the right to hang or behead me if Dumbledore doesn't have my guts for garters first. I don't want to run."

"Good, then let's—"

"—and I won't surrender until you do something for me, Witcher."

Harry sighed. "Of course there's a catch."

"There's always a catch."

"And what's yours?"

"You're a witcher, you must already sense the darkness in this place. It's only been days since the act, but the valley seems saturated in it," the sorcerer mused.

"I've seen the grave, and the empty houses. And you're responsible. You've admitted as much."

"I have, but you must believe me when I say I did not intend for this to happen," he entreated; the witcher did not believe him, but nodded along anyway. "Yes, I stole the bloody lamp from that old fool Fudge."

"Do you still have it?" Harry asked.

"The original lamp, no. We discarded it because there was a tracking spell on it, but..." he reached into his robes and pulled out a small, rune-engraved flask with a swirling grey substance beating against the walls, "I do still have the djinn we took from the Chancellor."

"So, you took the djinn from the Chancellor. With your partner, yes?"

"Clever," said the sorcerer. "But my partner is away and safe right now, and I've no intention of giving them up, for I love them as I love my own sibling. But, as I was saying, we took the lamp from Fudge."

"He didn't give it to you?"

"Why would he give it to us?" came the stone-faced response.

"Why would he be in his office when you decided to free the djinn for the first time?"

"Bad luck?"

The witcher's eyes flashed. "There's no need to cover for a dead man. He won't thank you for it."

"There also appears to be no reason to lie to you, since you've already pieced just about everything together. Fine, the three wishes were originally to be split among us: one for me, one for my partner, and one for Fudge. But Fudge did not survive our first encounter then, and my partner and I rethought our wishes. The first almost went according to plan: we wished for a king's ransom hidden in a safe place only we could find."

"And djinn leaves it here," said Harry.

The sorcerer laughed and threw his arms wide out over the valley. "And the djinn left it _here_. Among mountain folk who know this valley far better than I ever could. Can you blame me for being paranoid? I thought every day that I would return to that cave and find nothing but a few scraps of gold and maybe a necklace left. Even as more of the brigands and cutthroats I hired made their way into the mountains, I felt less and less secure. Especially since my partner was not among us."

Harry's eyes flashed with understanding: the second thief was still in the wind, so he had not been the second man who arrived in town on the first day. "And because of that, you had them killed?" Harry asked, ignoring that detail for now.

"No. Not exactly," said the sorcerer. "I asked the Djinn to keep our treasure safe from the villagers. It apparently thought the best way to preserve our treasure was to kill everyone living in the town. After all, a dead person has no use for coin. It wasn't painful, of course. They just fell to the ground, in the middle of dinners, baths... you name it. Like falling asleep."

 _Explains why there were no signs of a fight in any of the houses_ , Harry thought.

"We were afraid that the dead bodies would attract corpse-eaters and other such monsters to the valley, if we just left them to rot. So, Havard and his boys buried them deep while I was away for a few hours. And that was that... until nightfall."

"Heard a bit about it from Rhaeler: some sort of spectral army?"

"Yes. Every night, they rise from the grave and comb the valley like a bloody unit of dragoons, killing anything living. We've been scurrying further up the mountains away from where they roam, yet they've nearly killed us all. Rhaeler and I are the only ones left."

The witcher frowned. He and the other scouts had led everyone into a town that would be overrun with spectres come nightfall, and no-one save himself and possibly Hermione could hold the vengeful dead off. He only had a few hours of light left, and the need to get back to Wezyn intensified with every passing minute.

"Why did you not just leave the valley?"

"As I said," the sorcerer reiterated, "my friend was not among us, and I had no way of contacting him from here. He was to come later, once all the furor over the theft died down. I could not just leave the valley and allow him to walk into an early grave when he finally made it here." Harry couldn't argue with that logic:

"And what do you want me to do?" he asked.

"Take as much of the gold as you please, take it all, if you'd like: it'll be my payment for this contract. You'll put those souls to rest, make sure they've gone on to wherever we go... then, I'll give myself up and return the djinn. I don't trust the thing any further than I can throw it; it's an instrument of violence, not good fortune."

"And if I just tell the lot where you are?"

"I have enough traps set about the mountain that Francesca Findabair herself would need the better part of a day to crack them all. And by then, the spectres will have butchered three-quarters of your men and I'll have taken my chances to escape by portal. And if you decide to attack yourself, you'd best hope to have dimeritium."

Harry nodded. "Fine. I'm taking my gold in advance, however."

"Ah, yes. Business is business, of course. Go ahead. As I said, you're welcome to how much you want."

The witcher wasted not another moment, and turned away. As he passed Rhaeler, he asked if the moustachioed man would come with him or stay until the spirits had been put to rest:

"I think I'll stay," said the mercenary. "I'm not turning myself until that fool does, as well."

Again, Harry nodded. "Suit yourself," he said, returning the way he came.

Half an hour later, after a stop by the cave of gold to collect sufficient payment, Harry returned and the Redanians were still congregated in the inn:

"Baron," he called out to their commander, who sat drinking an old bottle of mead by the fire. "I need you to come with me."

In a flash, the other man stood, ready to follow. It almost brought a smile to Harry's face, that he had earned the respect of the Redanian troop so easily; it was rare that he won _anyone's_ favour that quickly. They walked outside together, toward the holdfast where the Kaedweni troop stayed:

"What's this about, Witcher?" asked Baron von Steuen curiously.

"It'll be easier to tell everyone at once. Do you happen to know where the mages are?"

"Lady Hermione and Master Gilderoy, you mean? I'd imagine that Master Gilderoy stayed with yellow-bellies, because he came with them. Lady Hermione, on the other hand, I've not seen in hours. Though, she's a canny one, that lass: she could come and go, and few would notice."

"We need to find them as well, the news concerns us all."

"Aye, well I'd expect to find a fair few of them at the holdfast."

And the Baron's prediction proved true, for when they knocked on the double doors of the the holdfast, a soldier opened the door, and let the two men into the antechamber, where Dorcan sat by his troops around another fire, and stared contemplatively into the flames, while the two mages stood off to the side, guarded by Viktor, engaged in heated discussion.

"Get Lady Hermione and Master Gilderoy, if you please, Baron; I'll flag down Master Dorcan," said Harry, gesturing in the direction of the two mages.

"By your leave, Witcher," came the Baron's genial response, and the well-dressed commander scarpered off to Viktor, Hermione, and Lockhart. Harry watched him speak to Viktor for a short moment, before remembering he had his own task to complete. So the witcher moved toward the center of the antechamber and took a seat next to the Kaedweni commander.

"Witcher," the man said without looking away from the fire, "you have news?"

"I do."

"And the news is sensitive?" he asked, eyeing the soldiers who sat around them, all eager to hear what the witcher had uncovered.

"Mhm."

"Fine. There's a comfortable home by the edge of town I spied you blundering around in a few hours ago. It's the only one I've seen with more than one floor; we should speak there."

"As you wish."

"Good. I'll be along presently with Lockhart. You take the elf and the Redanian and get out."

Harry did exactly that, gathering the ones the Kaedweni had allowed him and leaving the makeshift barracks. The foursome arrived at the house Harry had found the perfume in and waited in the semi-spacious sitting room for Master Dorcan and Lockhart. And though the witcher looked on nervously at the slowly dipping sun, they did not have to wait very long, for as gruff and unpleasant as Master Dorcan might be, he was a man of his word.

"So, Witcher, what's this about?" he asked, electing to stand when offered a seat in one of the chairs around a heating stove.

"I found out what happened to the original inhabitants of the village," said Harry. "And I've found one of our two thieves, as well as an accomplice."

Hermione raised a delicate eyebrow, and leaned forward, looking the same and yet somehow completely different. "Who is he?" she asked.

"I don't know; he claimed none of you would recognise him even if you saw him."

Hermione reclined back against the chair, looking unconvinced, and Harry spotted what had changed: For as long as he'd known her, Hermione wasn't one to wear particularly fancy necklaces round her neck, which made it all the more surprising that she had chosen today to wear a delicate, leather choker, with fat oval of black opal dangling as its centrepiece.

It was a nice piece of jewelry, but it didn't really suit her, in Harry's opinion.

"Then, why are we sitting here? Better yet, why do you not have him already?" she interrogated, and Harry forgot about the choker for the time being.

"I'm not properly equipped to take on a sorcerer at the moment, Lady Granger," Harry said. "And our quarry's scattered magical traps and wards like caltrops around his location. Said Francesca Findabair herself would need the better part of the day to reach him."

Lockhart snorted. "If it would take the Daisy a full day, we wouldn't punch through his barriers in three or even four."

"And by then," continued Harry, "he could escape a hundred different ways."

"He must have spoken to you for a reason, otherwise he'd have left the moment he smelled danger," said Hermione, and the others nodded their agreement.

"That's where the original villagers come into play," Harry said, and went on to tell the assembled group what the sorcerer had told him: how the djinn had played him for a fool with every wish he uttered, how now the dead rose with every sunset, marauding their way up and down the valley, and how he wouldn't surrender himself until the restless spirits were given peace.

"I see," said the Baron. "So we're to push back the way we came and set up camp there?"

"Until I can put the spirits to rest, at least. Steel and sorcerer's magic matters little against the dead, so I'll stay behind. But the rest of you will need to leave the valley until I tell you otherwise," said Harry in a tone that brooked no argument.

* * *

Of course, Hermione appeared to live for vexing Harry. Even now, not but two hours before the sun set, the sorceress assured Harry in no uncertain terms that she'd be of more use in the valley than cowering in a cozy tent.

"I don't doubt your competence," entreated Harry, following the sorceress as she stormed away, "what I doubt is your training. We're bred to solve these problems; you aren't."

"Witcher," argued Hermione without slowing, "it's not a single wraith, or a scant few. There were close to _thirty or forty people_ who lived in this town! If all, or even _half_ , of them have turned into spectres, even a witcher doesn't stand a chance without help."

Harry didn't like her logic, mostly because he didn't have an adequate counterpoint to it. "If I manage the fight," he said. "If I'm careful..."

"Do shut up," the elf stopped long enough to fling, and then continued her single-minded march.

Harry sighed, part-annoyed and part-impressed at the incomprehensible stubbornness of the woman. "Where are you going?" he asked wearily.

"To set up magical protection around the town," she spat, "in case you fail at what you were _bred to do._ "

Harry grunted in frustration, and turned to Viktor, who had followed behind: "Can't you do something about this?" he asked. The southerner merely shrugged and made no attempt to leave the valley.

Fortunately, Lockhart was much easier to convince; the great fool flashed a blindingly white smile and graciously thanked the witcher for his sacrifice, as if he was volunteering to die rather than lift a curse on the already dead. The Baron and Dorcan were soldiers, and as such, had little experience with the supernatural; still, they understood the stakes and had their men beat feet back to higher ground for the long night ahead.

Just before sending Sleipnir with them, Harry fished out one of the many trusty bestiaries he kept with him, and tucked it into a small pouch attached to his sword belt. He handed the reigns off to the Baron, and made his way out past the edge of town, where Hermione was hard at work mouthing incomprehensible spells as well as ignoring him. Fortunately, that worked well enough for Harry, who made his way back to the forest and the grave within.

"Sylvie?" he called out to no-one when back on the disturbed earth. Again the wisp formed, and from it emerged Sylvie, dancing and lively as she ever was. "Sylvie," he crouched down to her level. "The other people who are here—" he pointed to the grave, "—Can you show them to me? Tell me what they look like?"

The little spirit shook her head.

"You can't tell me? Why not?" asked Harry, who immediately received his response as a little finger jabbed upward into the sky. "What? The sky?" A nod. "What about the sky?" The girl stamped her feet and pointed more vigorously at the setting sun. "Oh, the sun. Nightfall, then?" Another nod. "Ah, I did suspect that, given that they only attack during the night, but one can never be too careful."

 _Nightwraiths, then. I'll need to burn the remains of the victims and something of value to them before night falls, and I haven't much time._

"Listen, Sylvie. Once night comes, I want you to run away, do you understand me?" Harry asked, and Sylvie made a little feminine sound of understanding. "Go away from the valley and stay there until an hour past dawn. I promise, when morning comes, I'll play with you all day."

"Who are you talking to?" another voice broke through Harry and Sylvie's one-sided conversation. Harry stood, and glanced over his shoulder: Hermione stood some twenty paces behind Harry, while Sylvie gasped and hid herself behind the witcher's trouser leg. She immediately dispersed into smoke and cleared away from the copse.

"No one important," replied Harry, running a hand through sweaty raven hair. "I was just outsourcing a bit of help."

"Outsourcing," Hermione deadpanned, looking wholly unconvinced.

"I've found that 'the army of the dead' are probably nightwraiths, which is a fairly good deal, as mass hauntings go."

"How so?"

"It doesn't take much to put a nightwraith's spirit to rest. All you need is something valuable of theirs, and burn it at the same time as the body. This will usually lure them in close enough that we can defeat them with silver. The real question isn't difficulty, it's a question of time."

Hermione nodded in agreement. "I've no idea how we're meant to find the most valued possessions of every person in an entire community that we never met within an hour or two before the sun sets."

"As well as dig up the bodies to burn them."

The sorceress glowered deeply at a doorframe behind Harry for a long moment, and suddenly, she smiled, in that way only Hermione Granger could when solving a particularly difficult problem. "I have an idea," she said.

That idea turned out to be somewhat of a eureka moment: Terrifying, but brilliant. And so caught in its beauty and simplicity, Harry forgot about the shovel in his hand and stared at the rising conflagration with an expression that lay somewhere between slack-jawed wonderment and supreme irritation. Beside him, even Viktor looked impressed at the sheer display of magical output.

"So this was your idea," Harry deadpanned as the sorceress threw another fiery meteor at a different house.

"Mhm," agreed Hermione, smiling as the boathouse burst into flames and eventually settled into a pile of steaming grey ash. "It burns everything, good or bad. The villagers are dead, so I'm sure they won't mind."

"You know I'm supposed to say a few words about the dead before you go around crashing fireballs into houses."

"Well," shrugged Hermione uncaringly, "you'd best speak quickly then."

"Erm... To the men and women of Wezyn, frontiersmen and explorers the lot, who were taken before their time... Well, you're gone, but you're... Erm... You're not forgotten."

Harry cringed at his own words, as insincere as they were. When he finally dared to crack open an eye, he spied Hermione failing to hide her amusement at his failed eulogy:

"I suppose we'll have to hope that was good enough for them," she said, summoning more monstrous lances of fire from the darkening sky. They struck down with fury and consumed the village once known as Wezyn in a sphere of brilliant yellows and raging reds. "That should take care of that," she said, clapping her hands free of some nonexistent dust. "Where to next?"

"Back to the grave. We have to dig it up and do the same as you did to the town," Harry said, holding up the shovel.

The look he got in response was equal parts disdain and pity. "Master Witcher, I am a sorceress. Which means I can do magic. What on earth do you need a shovel for?" she said sardonically, and stalked off in the general direction of the forest, without waiting for either the witcher or the bodyguard. Harry, by virtue of paying attention, was able to close the gap between himself and Hermione, but Viktor, who was still enthralled with her overglorified light-show, only noticed they'd gone when they were halfway to the forest:

"Very good!" he shouted loudly, louder than Harry had imagined the sullen man could speak. "I vill just vait here then!"

"He seems pleased," said Harry.

"He can wait five minutes. Because it'll only take that long with magic."

"If you're sure."

"I'm sure."

When Hermione flexed her magical muscle at the grave, and lifted the loamy earth of the grave, no less than ten stiff, semi-decayed corpses came tumbling out from the mountain of dirt and crashed atop the other stiffs with a series sickening crunches. This time, Hermione cringed, and Harry gave her his own pitying look:

"This is why I default to the shovel, Madame Sorceress."

"Shove it."

Harry hid his smile, outstretched an arm, and made a complicated series of wiggles with his fingers until a strong jet of fire seemingly spewed from his hands and onto the broken bodies. "However you found yourselves in this place, know you are remembered, and take some solace in that."

"What do we do after this?" Hermione asked once Harry stepped away from the makeshift crematorium.

"Dusk isn't a long ways off, and we still need to prepare," said the witcher, eyeing the skyline through the trees. "Tell me, Sorceress, do they give you even a modicum of instruction with blades at Aretuza?"

Hermione arched a brow. "Again, Witcher, we are capable of _magic_. I can throw down fireballs, electrocute you, send a bird through your forehead... we never had need for such brutish instruments as a sword."

"So, if I were to give you one, you wouldn't be able to use it?"

"I could wave it like an overgrown fork," Hermione said as they began the long trek back to the destroyed town.

"Good," said Harry, reaching beneath the leg-slit in the kaftan of his bear school armour, and withdrawing a silver-forged, bone-handled, Ofieri dagger he'd picked up in Gors Velen. "If you can use a fork, you can use a knife."

"Wonderful, I'll hand it off to Viktor," said Hermione, accepting the dagger like an unwanted child. "Anything else that I can't use that you want to give me?"

"Moon Dust bombs," Harry said, only to receive a blank stare. "Nightwraiths are incorporeal. If you can't lure them into a Yrden trap, a moon dust bomb contains enough silver fragments to explode over the spectre, and will make them material long enough for you to get in the killing stroke. I've five of them."

" _Again_ , all useless to me," said the sorceress. "I can make a trap stronger than your Yrden, so your bombs will better serve Viktor than they will me. As will this dagger: he can't very well fight wraiths with a steel longsword, can he?"

"True, but I'd rather he be out of the valley. You're already a liability, and you're a _sorceress_ , think of how much worse it is for a person who has no power whatsoever beyond how good a sword-hand he has."

Hermione placed her hands on her hips, which was significantly less intimidating when she did it while still walking. "Your objection has been noted," she said dismissively. "I shall bring it up with Viktor when we return to camp, but whether he stays or goes is his decision."

* * *

Upon return to the camp, Hermione gave Viktor the choice to stay or leave, and, predictably, he choose to stay. The sorceress smiled smugly at Harry, who merely shook his head: Viktor didn't know what what he was getting into, and Hermione was treating a haunting as though it was a game. But who was he to turn away help? And even if he really wanted to, he very much doubted that he'd be able to convince either to leave with anything less than force.

So it was with a shrug that he returned to his preparations. The trio gauged the time, and happily observed there was still an hour before the sun dipped below the horizon. And another hour to dusk meant another hour to fully-prepare. This manifested itself in different ways among the three: Hermione, as she was wont to do before a deadline, obsessively and nervously checked and re-checked her traps and protective spells around the burned village; Viktor practiced with his newly gifted dagger, in a stance not entirely dissimilar to Zerrikanian warrior women who used similar knives; and Harry meditated on his knees with a selection of potions and blade oils laid out before him.

The witcher found his whetstone, a metal brick sintered from meteorite ore and ceramics, and coated it with a generous amount of his spectre oil. Drawing his silver longsword from its grey-fur-and-green-leather scabbard, Harry set about sharpening it with smooth strokes of the blade's edge to the block, admiring the way the carved bear pommel glittered in the late evening sun. It was easy to get lost in the routine, but Harry could not help but keep one eye on the horizon, and the sun as it dipped lower and lower until partially obscured by several mountain peaks.

Once finally convinced that her spells and protective enchantments wouldn't fail, Hermione wandered over to the Witcher, watching with academic interest as he finished his own task. And Viktor, sensing that time was now short, also returned to the Witcher and the sorceress to wait out the last golden rays of sunshine, before the long night ahead.

They watched the sunset like romantics on a first date, marveling as the sky turned from pale yellow, to brilliant gold, to burnt orange. When the last bits of bronze were replaced by a deep, dark blue, a little rattling disturbed the shared reverie. Harry, on account of having faster reflexes than the others, was the first to take his eyes off the sky, instead letting them fall down to his chest where his medallion lay. It was not shaking, jangling, tinkling, or rattling in any way.

Instead, the disturbance had come from Hermione, and the mysterious black opal that lay between her collarbones. The oval chunk of precious stone lifted off her milk-glass skin and rose a few inches into the air. There it hovered for a long moment, pointing forward, and then it swiftly moved from side-to-side until it came to rest in the direction of a mountain with a ridge overlooking the town. The ridge, Harry remembered, where he met the penitent thieves. But while Harry and Viktor eyed the suddenly-animated rock with varying degrees of confusion from the witcher and distrust from the bodyguard, Hermione observed the floating stone with academic interest and, irritatingly to the witcher, even smirked at it:

"Curious," she said, with that equally curious smile.

"What's all that about, then?" Harry asked.

Hermione took a moment to reply, still transfixed by the stone and the mountain at which it pointed. "Nothing of special importance," she said. "Just a little spell I've been working on."

"Is it of any use to us right now?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Of course," sighed Harry, but then a second piece of neckwear was possessed, and made a racket much louder than the the soft clinking of Hermione's choker. So, this time, Hermione let her amber eyes fall on the medallion resting over the coarse leatherwork of Harry's chest-armour:

"Your medallion," she pointed out quietly. Harry could already feel the first stirring of sorrow in the valley, choking the life from the trees around that grave hidden in the forest copse, and returned his silver meteorite sword back to its scabbard.

"They'll be coming soon. If you've no experience with spirits, now would be the time to steel your resolve," the witcher said, withdrew several potion vials from the pouch, and stood, swiftly reattaching his silver sword to the open ring on his sword-belt.

He knew the stories; he'd heard them long ago as a lad in the dark dungeons of Kaer Almhult, when the older witchers would regale the recruits with stories of their own hunts. Ragnar, a man the size of one of the many mountains surrounding Harry now, loved to talk of nightwraiths, of beautiful women who haunted barrowfields and forest meadows, ready to lynch the unwary merchant with his own entrails. So for years, Harry had thought nightwraiths these translucent nymphs with gryffin-like temper, skin that looked as soft as silk, and voice like a wealthy trobairitz.

When he'd encountered his first nightwraith, a sad young woman murdered the night before her marriage, Harry swore to relieve Ragnar of his sword-hand for his tall tales. Harry, not much more than a boy then, had not been prepared for a shriveled, jawless excuse for a maid in a mourning dress that swiped at everything passerby with erynia-like claws.

And no matter how much preparation it took, no one could look on, unsurprised, as a horde of wraiths melted out from the forest, and glided up the long path to the burnt town. Harry was intimately familiar with the melted-wax sculpture look of the drifting spectral monstrosities, but his companions most decidedly were not:

" _Dana Méadbh_!" Hermione exlaimed softly. "Are those truly nightwraiths?"

"Yes," Harry said, tapping the bottom of his sword's scabbard upward to aid with drawing the blade from his back.

"Perhaps I was hasty dismissing the dagger," replied the elf with a rueful little grin.

"It must be terrible to be a vitcher," said Viktor, grasping the dagger a bit tighter, despite Hermione's earlier quip.

"Aye, Viktor, it's a dog's life," the witcher said, and downed a quick dose of blizzard, reveling in the slimy texture, noxious smell, and vomit-inducing taste. "Madame Sorceress, if you'd be so kind as to place a barrier between us and them?"

Waving an arm at the ground below the trio, Hermione spoke, " _Aen'drean aenye, en'ca deith, vorsaeke'llan me neén, voe'rle holl morvudd_!"

Fire swirled from the edges of a runic symbol that etched itself into the ground, and spewed upward to blot out the world beyond ten feet. A dome of flame surrounded them, and just as quickly receded, to leave a sparking orange shield not unlike a more powerful version of the quen sign most witchers were taught.

"Well done," Harry praised.

"Make it quick," Hermione replied rigidly, ever the one to ignore a compliment. "I can't hold this forever."

She didn't have to worry, because the wraiths more than made it clear they wanted this to end quickly, as well. Upon sighting the flames and barrier surrounding the trio, they picked up pace and the peaceful glide turned into searing speed.

"They'll not be able to harm us while we're inside the barrier, but wraiths aren't stupid: they'll adapt," Harry said to Viktor, whose face had paled progressively since the jawless faces and dead eyes of the wraiths started bearing down on the trio:

"Vat shall ve do then, Vitcher?" he asked quietly, steeling himself for what was to come, but the mettle seemed to seep out of his body when a thunderous boom filled the world, and Hermione cried out at the pressure that crashed round her barrier. The spectres had made their charge and started their assault with a coordinated and continuous rush against the barrier in waves.

Harry counted the wraiths, numbering around fifteen, and was delighted to see that only a handful of them were true nightwraiths, while the rest were standard spectres. While not as dangerous as a nightwraith, they carried blades with steel as dark as midnight, which, even in the most untrained of farm-hands, could still disembowel a seasoned swordsman.

On a second look at the bodyguard's limp stance and wan look, the witcher grit his teeth. This was why he hadn't wanted Hermione or Viktor around: neither were trained for this sort of engagement, and while Hermione was holding her own, she had the weapon of the gods in magic; Viktor had no such tool in his belt, and was slowly realising that his immense skill with the sword meant little in the face of the unnatural. He'd have to rebuild the bodyguard's confidence, to show him that he could be of use in this situation:

"For now, stay back, and _watch me_ ," Harry ordered the man, grabbed one of the moon dust bombs he'd prepared, and walked calmly to the edge of the barrier, wincing at the wails of women and the shouts of men. With another complicated twist of the fingers, Harry set down the sign of Yrden in a circle around him, forcing two of the nightwraiths to turn corporeal, and slowing three more.

He exhaled softly, inhaled, and jumped out of the safety of the barrier. Viktor gasped and Hermione shouted curses at him to return to within the dome, but any protests died on their lips when they saw the witcher dance. He leapt out of the shield and immediately ran sharp silver through a wraith, in a way that would have unseamed a man from naval to chest. There was a howl of pain, and the skinny thing disappeared into an ether of green fog, a fog that tasted remarkably of blood and death. The taste made the witcher smile.

Here, there was no need to hide. Here was chaos, and misery, and rage, and the thrill of a hundred deaths to die. Here was home to the witcher: a whirlwind of silver; a storm of parries, pirouettes, and blocks; and the single stroke that would end it all. In the fray, there was nothing to fear: no witcher ever earned the luxury of dying in his bed, so every win, every contract was more stolen time from the gods.

A sword bore hotly down toward the witcher's head, but with savage grace, he parried the blade and used the positioning of his own sabre to turn the spectre's blade to the side, taking the edge from it's strike. Once properly parried, Harry cut upward and diagonally, from right arm to left shoulder.

A scant few seconds stolen from Melitele.

That strike led to a downward cut at the encroaching final wraith. Another minute stolen from the Lionhead Spider.

Just as Harry faced down two of the nightwraiths, with the other dozen spectres slowly converging, the sign of Yrden began to fade away. They became faster now, and two wraiths became six, lunging for the head of the witcher who had just sent three of their own off to eternal rest. Harry, ever the pragmatist, backed away into the safety of Hermione's barrier, and regrouped. He weighed his options as a gnarled, clawed hand swiped at and bounced off the sorceress's shield, debating whether to repeat the sign of Yrden, or throw one of his moon dust bombs into the coterie and attack them from within safety.

"Hermione," shouted Harry over the spectral wails, "how long can you hold this shield for?"

"What!?" Hermione shouted back, unable to hear the witcher over the cacophony.

"I asked, 'How long can you hold this shield for?'!"

"Not long!" she exclaimed, having heard him this time. "Maybe another minute if this assault keeps up! Once the barrier breaks, I'll have to use conventional magic!"

And just as Harry decided to throw the Moon Dust bomb, to make full use of the barrier before Hermione lost control of it completely, a small, spherical object went whizzing past the witcher's face. Harry watched in slow motion as the object sailed past the red-orange edges of Hermione's spell and into the second line of wraiths. And in a great turn of fortune, the sphere broke against one of the corporeal wraiths and exploded out all over its companions, until a fine snow of silver rained down over them, leaving them solid, slowed, and unable to access their own magic abilities.

"There," said Viktor to Hermione, flexing the fingers that had thrown the bomb, "I have bought you time." Hermione smiled tiredly as the bodyguard recovered his gumption and lined up next to the witcher, steel sword in one hand, silver knife in the other.

Harry nodded to the sellsword. "Good to see you feeling like yourself again."

"Vat vould you have me do?"

"We target the wraiths with swords first; the blades may look dangerous but they're easier to kill," said Harry, "the women in rags, you leave to me." At that, Viktor nodded and waited for the witcher to make the first move.

Harry crept over to the edge of the barrier, resisting the primal urge to set down another Yrden trap, for fear of slowing Viktor along with the spectres. Still, if he feared that the southron swordsman would be a liability, it was soon proven unfounded. While he did not synergise with Viktor like he had Ron, the Wolf he'd met a few days out from Cintra, they still made a whirlwind of blades the moment they stepped out from the safety of Hermione's shield.

They felled one, two, three wraiths in a deadly dance of steel, and stole more seconds from the Eternal Fire. But it soon became clear that they were slowly being driven away from each other. In a fight, Harry and another witcher knew to stay close to each other by instinct alone, it was not so with Viktor, who had put a distance of about eight feet between himself and the witcher.

Harry grunted in annoyance and tried to shift back toward Viktor, but a quick jangle of his medallion told him the space had already been filled by three wraiths waving their blackened swords. With a graceful pirouette, Harry avoided an unskilled sword blow from one of the lantern-holding wraiths, as well as the sharp jab of the claw of a nightwraith, and danced out of the circle the spirits had been trying to enclose him within.

Viktor wasn't so lucky: he was slow being consumed by his own group of wraiths, unable to make use of the dagger Harry had given him. Harry dodged another incoming strike, and rolled back into the confines of the shield:

"Hermione! The Etolian!"

The elf did not need to be told again; she screwed her eyes shut and her arms shook under the tremendous strain of those words of power: " _Aedd, aedd deith. Aedd deith am fhean glândeal. Aedd deith am f'heail invaerne aen marwen._ "

There was a clap of thunder, and a burst of colour and light that near blinded the witcher with his enhanced sight, leaving him seeing fading stars and pyrotechnics like he had in Toussaint on Belleteyn night several years earlier. When his vision returned to him, the shield Hermione had painstakingly erected was gone, she was on her knees, and Viktor had scrambled back to relative safety from the wraiths, all of whom appeared to be momentarily cowed by the woman's display of raw power. _I didn't know she could do that,_ Harry thought to himself.

"Sorceress," he then asked urgently. "Are you still able to fight?"

"I'm fine," Hermione answered testily, though her breathing was ragged. "It's fine, really. There's nothing that stings more at the pride than doing little else but look pretty while the men think themselves gallant for waving their steel cocks at shadows."

The witcher laughed at her predictably curmudgeonly reply. "They're silver, Madame Sorceress," he retorted quickly, and scurried away to where Viktor sat dazed, and pulled him up before the wraiths attacked again, and they were moving again, crossing the threshold of the burned homes they had lived in not but a week earlier.

" _A d'yaebl aép arse_. That tongue of yours will get you into trouble one day, Witcher," sneered Hermione from behind the two men.

"So they say. But you'd best take your frustrations out on the 'shadows', rather than me," he said over his shoulder to the sorceress, and then spoke to the sellsword. "This time, don't get separated from me; two swords together are always better than one."

His pep talk was cut short by a blood-curdling, inhuman cry from one of the nightwraiths. They were down to less than a third their number, thanks to the partially to the swordsmen, and mostly to Hermione's exploding shield, and it seemed their companions now understood that their fallen friends were not going to return. On one hand, Harry was relieved; the lack of returning wraiths meant that Hermione's scorched earth policy of reducing the village to ash had managed to work. On the other, this meant that the surviving dead would be even more vicious than they had been before.

The screams intensified as the other nightwraiths took on the first's cause. The witcher winced, not for the first time tonight ruing his enhanced senses. But, as ever, his salvation came in the form of Hermione, and an angrily thrown comet of fire that barreled toward the screaming banshees. Wraiths were quick, but none were quick enough to dive out of the way of a bolt like that, so the conflagration crashed and splashed against the group and the howls of rage quickly morphed into shrieks of pain.

All the while, Hermione wore a serene little smile, as if she had used magic to heat her dinner rather than burn a score of furious ghosts. Harry, too, felt a smile pulling at his unwilling lips when he saw her expression.

 _And, finally,_ he thought, _I think I'm beginning to see what Viktor does in her_.

But now was not the time to marvel at the sorceress's charming sociopathy. Now was the time to return to the fray; now was the time to dance with death and see if he could add a few more grains of itinerant salt to his hourglass. And so, with the thrill building back after its quick respite, Harry stalked toward the wraiths even as they glided to meet him, profile low and predatory, like a wolf circling wounded prey. Hermione stayed back, her magical power alone enough to allow her leave to wander as she pleased; Viktor had to keep up with Harry, and he did, but there was apprehension in his steps and worry in the lines of his face, so unlike the half-mad grin the witcher wore.

"Do you enjoy this?" Viktor asked suddenly, with one eye on the enemy.

"Do I enjoy what?"

"Fighting these monsters?"

"Of course," replied Harry, "the life of a witcher would be dreadfully boring otherwise, wouldn't you say, Master Viktor?"

"You may speak like a _Roethainne_ ," said Viktor, "but you are truly a man of the barbarian isles at heart." Harry laughed at that, unsure as to whether the man's words were compliment, insult, or mere observation. The barbarian isles must have meant Skellige, where he spent much of his childhood and good chunk of his time as a grown man, but Viktor was doubly wrong in his assessment: his lost family had been Temerian, though the lineage did carry Redanian blood in it, and he took no pleasure in cutting down men, as the pirates of Skellige did, only monsters.

But there was no point in telling the surly swordsman any of this, especially when the dead stood only metres away. The nightwraiths took lead now, leaving the few remaining conventional spectres to spectate.

The ear-splitting shriek returned, and immediately, the women wreathed in black split apart and lunged forward, each attempting to divide the trio by overwhelming them individually. The wraith who took on Hermione was the least lucky of three, earning a thorough charring from the sorceress's repeated fire-based spells. Still, nightwraiths were made of sterner stuff than their unremarkable counterparts: without a silver blade, it was near impossible to land a death blow on such a creature. So, nearly as soon as the spectre fell back shrieking, it flew back in full-force, this time wreathed in flame.

Hermione swore and scrambled out of the way of the runaway wraith, letting loose an elder speech obscenity that was both impossible for Harry to pronounce, and utter lovely to hear dropped from the elf's rosebud lips. She struggled over to where Harry and Viktor defended themselves against their own wraiths, which drew the flaming nightwraith's attention to Harry, who the elf had stopped closer to.

The wraith turned in the night sky, the crescent moon behind her smoking form, and lunged downward toward the two, just as the second nightwraith split into three, in attempt to drain the life-force out of her living opponents. Without so much as a second thought, Harry dove for the sorceress's wrist, pulled her to his chest, and cast an active Quen shield around them, just in time for the burned wraith to crash into it.

It wasn't a perfect plan, but Harry surmised that it could possibly work in the battlefield: the split nightwraith would gain life-force from something, but it would not be him. The wraith would steal energy from his active shield, weakening it enough so that when the other wraith crashed into it, he would replicate the same controlled detonation Hermione had with her own shield. Sirius would have his hide if he knew Harry was testing new techniques in the midst of a life-and-death battle, but, Harry thought with some humour, he'd also be furious that Harry had allowed non-witchers to help him in the first place.

When the second wraith struck, Harry's gamble paid off, and the shield exploded outward, though the witcher's sign magic lacked the brilliance and sheer power of the Hermione's spell. Still, it was enough to stagger the swooping spectre, and, with feline reflexes, Harry grasped his unused moon dust bomb, and shattered it at his feet below to coat the two assaulting ghosts in silver once more.

In the space of an instant, the screeching, burning wraith could no longer screech nor burn, and her comrade that had split into three was forcibly made whole once more. They moved slowly, lethargically, and Harry could send them both beyond the veil of death in an instant.

"Go aid Viktor, Sorceress; I can clean up here just fine."

Hermione evidently agreed with his assessment, for once, and hurried off toward Viktor on the other side of the road surrounded by the burned sod homes. Once Hermione was with him, Harry no longer feared for Viktor's safety, and could focus fully on the powerless wraiths.

"Well, shall we finish this, then?" he said to them, and raised his sword high. After these two, there were only a few of those sword-bearing wraiths left. Easy pickings.

He would steal another night of sweet life from Freya and all her hosts, after all.

* * *

Harry received a hard look from Hermione as they trudged up the mountain pass toward where he had left Rhaeler and The Sorcerer. "To be certain, he did say he would surrender himself and the djinn once we put the souls in the valley to rest, yes?"

"Aye, that's what he said," Harry replied.

"And all the spirits have been put to rest, yes?"

"Aye," said Harry once more, "it's only two hours past nightfall and my medallion's not shook once since we left town. There's little magic left in this valley, and even fewer monsters."

"Ah, forgive me my proclivities, Harry; I like to be sure of things," said Hermione; she then shivered and looked around the barren mountain. "I do hope Viktor will return soon; I cannot wait to see the end of this matter."

Harry grunted his agreement. The Etolian had gone off back the way they came to inform the Redanians and Kaedwenis that the worst was over with, and that the sorceress and the witcher had gone to retrieve the penitent thieves. Harry too wished to be done with this whole sorry affair; he had become quite sick of mountains and cliffs and plateaus, and the quicker they apprehended the sorcerer and his surviving accomplice, the quicker they'd leave the Kestrels behind.

So the witcher picked up his pace, and the sorceress followed at heel, nearly matching his stride step-for-step as they trudged up the mountainside to the place where Harry the plateau overlooking the valley before, where Harry had first met the mystery sorcerer.

But midway through that trek, Harry stopped abruptly, and the inattentive sorceress crashed into his back. "Witcher," she said, annoyed, "why have you stopped?"

Harry didn't answer.

He was a tracker, and he was long used to the spoor that assaulted his senses, but he could not fathom why it would be still be this far up the mountain when the villagers had long been buried. _But_ , he surmised, _I hadn't noticed it on the way up from the valley_. Curious, he moved ten paces further up the path, and the faint smell turned ever-so-slightly stronger. No, it wasn't from the villagers in the valley.

He smelled blood and death, and it went up, up, past the crags and rocky faces, to that ridge overlooking the dead valley. Harry and Hermione roamed up those crags and traversed those sheer faces, until they came to the place, and spied blood artistry, spattered across the jutting rocks and smoothed stone alike.

A man was propped up against a boulder, a man covered from rich Toussaintois doublet to Nilfgaardian leather shoes in his own blood.

Hermione brought a hand up to cover her nose and mouth. " _Dana Méadbh_ ," she murmured as Harry crouched and lifted the dead man's head. Even he winced at the way the man's throat had been cut.

"Rhaeler," Harry identified the corpse, "he was the last of the sorcerer's mercenaries. Throat slit over there," Harry pointed to an open space on the cliff where now-dried blood had stained the rocks in spurts. "He was probably then dragged here."

"Speaking of your sorcerer-thief," Hermione said, "where is he?"

Both the witcher and the sorceress stepped out from behind the boulder and looked down the ridge to the promontory where Harry had first met the thief. There he still sat, his back to the two interlopers, though he was kneeling this time instead of sitting cross-legged.

"Over there, I suppose," Harry said.

"Did he do this?" Hermione whispered.

Harry breathed in the noxious air once more, and sighed. "He might have, but—" Hermione was already off, jogging toward the kneeling man:

"You!" she shouted, and received no response. "What's going on here!? Why—" The elf reached the sorcerer and the words died in her mouth, as Harry expected. Hermione stumbled backward as Harry followed wearily in her wake. He caught the reeling woman and steadied her, before they, together, returned to inspect the blond-haired sorcerer.

Harry grimaced at the sight of the man, carrying a wound only the most grievous of sword strikes could induce in a proper fight. "Disemboweled," he said, looking to the small mound of internal organs that had leaked out of his body and onto the promontory before him. Blood drifted away from the mountain of guts, and dripped over the edge.

Hermione, getting over the initial shock of a man with his intestines in his lap, observed the corpse clinically. "Well, he was right about one thing."

"What?"

"I have no idea who this is," sniffed Hermione, "so he was right in telling you that a name would be of no help."

"Ah."

"He's kneeling," she said now, switching topics easily. "and the weapon that killed him is right here," Hermione pointed at a wickedly curved knife, not unlike the bone-handled one Harry owned. "By the looks of things, it's almost certainly a suicide. Perhaps he killed the mercenary first, and then attended to himself?"

"It's a possibility," Harry said distractedly. He fell to his knees and shoved a hand into his bloodied robes, ignoring Hermione's disgusted look, and rutted around until he found the exact place...

"What on _earth_ are you doing, Witcher?"

A gauntleted hand, now stained crimson, withdrew from the once-pristine robes. "It's empty."

"If you're talking about his torso, _of course_ it's empty," said Hermione, nose wrinkled, "his entire belly is out on the ground like it's on display at a merchant's stall."

Harry glared at the elf. "Not his bowels, Lady Hermione, his robes. His robes are empty."

Hermione blinked once, and then comprehension dawned on her. "Oh. _Oh_! You don't think—you don't think he hid it, do you?"

"I don't think so," replied Harry, "he'd not just hide the djinn, especially after he had shown me the flask. If he had plans of any kind for it, he wouldn't have let me see the damned thing in the first place. No. There's something here, some clue that—"

Harry might have finished his sentence, if not for him nearly tripping and falling over the edge of the promontory. His mouth clamped shut and he tried to balance his legs, though the ground somehow remained unbalanced below them. With a confused look at Hermione, he saw that she too struggled to stay steady. There was no noise, just wordless shaking for one very long moment.

And then, sound: a raucous cacophony. A great wave of sound and shock burst forth and assaulted them from all sides. To that day, Harry had only once heard something similar, and it had been the deafening roar that town hall made all those months ago in Cintra. He did not have the time to dwell on the mass of burned and and melted bodies, that pastiche from his nightmares, as he usually did, because a rock loosened from under him, and fell away only moments after the wary witcher dove back.

"Sorceress!" he shouted, scrabbling back toward the elf to catch her in a sloppy embrace. The stones crumbled further and further back; they dropped out from under the sorcerer. First, the chunks of stone were swallowed by mother night's swell and father gravity's pull, and then the man himself, stomach and intestines following close at heel.

Harry and Hermione had no desire to end up as the mystery sorcerer, so, each holding on to the other like a shipwrecked sailor to driftwood, the two dragged themselves back toward the relative safety of the boulders and Rhaeler's red-black smile. They fell atop each other as the tremors continued and more broken rocks fell from the cliff down into the valley before.

But the rocking ended long before it had a chance to endanger the fallen duo. As abruptly as it began, the noise stopped, and the shaking stopped with it. It left nothing behind but a much smaller ridge, and a witcher in a tangle of limbs with a sorceress by its edge. Harry lay pinned on the bottom, and Hermione sprawled out atop him, dazed:

"What... what just happened?" she asked, breathing heavily. "Earthquake?"

"Seems like it," Harry said, keeping his focus on the pretty, red-purple sky.

 _Wait. Red sky, this late?_ Harry wondered to himself suspiciously, but lethargically. Hermione, on the other hand, shot up so that she sat astraddle the prone witcher, and looked in the direction where the rest of the cliff had been. Instead of another question, as he expected, Harry heard a gasp.

"It was an explosion," Hermione murmured face stark-white, pointing in a direction where the sky became redder, and redder.

And when Hermione said why the sky was so red, the colour drained from Harry's face, too. Great, blundering gouts of fire, no more than merry little candlelights from the collapsed cliff, danced far away, rising up beyond the ruined village, through trees, and past the placid brook that separated dale from the mountain pass.

"The soldiers," Harry murmured, knowing exactly who had camped in the mountain pass just outside the valley. Or, at least, that was Harry's concern; Hermione's worry looked to concern someone else entirely, Viktor, whom she had sent personally to tell the soldiers that the job was done.

The sorceress rocketed off him, and offered a dainty hand up. "We must go to them, _now_." The witcher looked out at the collapsed promontory, and knew the chance to investigate the mountaintop deaths had passed him by. Now, the only thing that mattered were the other men in his own retinue.

Without wasting another second, Harry took the proffered hand.

* * *

 **A/N:** A long one, nearly twice the length of my normal chapters, but I think there should only be one more part to TLW, and then we're _finally_ moving on. I'm not sure how happy I am with the way this chapter ended and the wraith fight that surrounded it. It feels lacking, in comparison to the leshen fight in The Lesser Kindness, but I suppose it's alright, because there's a little more to come before all's said and done in this arc.

Chapter Notes:

Zanguebar: One of the mysterious countries in the witcher world that we don't hear much about, but from what we do know, it's overseas to the south, by Ofir. And if I I'm not mistaken, Zanguebar is a real-life French translation of Zanzibar, which is a region of Eastern Africa and its surrounding archipelagos. So, my guess is that the flora and fauna of Zanguebar most likely represent that of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Quick Kills: Harry and co. generally dispatch enemies, including spirits in one or two hits, which is an attempt to return to the type of combat seen in Sapkowski's books over the Witcher games. There's something inherently game-y about Geralt wailing on a dude for thirteen or fourteen hits in the game, when in genuine sword combat, the first cut is usually the last.

Hopefully my Elder Speech wasn't complete shit; I'm basically running off the witcher wiki for elder speech words and phrases, right now. So, if someone knows a more comprehensive glossary of elder speech terms, then don't hesitate to link me.

Night Spirits: I'm extrapolating a lot about them, given that they're (to my knowledge) only mentioned once in the series, by Dandelion in "A Little Sacrifice", part of Sword of Destiny, during his rant about how picky Geralt is with his own contracts, after Geralt accuses Dandelion of "putting on airs" when refusing an offer to work a wedding with another bard. He says Geralt won't hunt "night spirits, because they're sweet". Aside from that, everything else about night spirits is pretty much made up.

* * *

Thanks to all who have read thus far, and a special thanks to those who have reviewed, followed, faved and PM'd me about this fic, your continued interest and support is the sole factor as to why this fic has gotten as far as it has. I'd love to keep hearing your thoughts on chapters, tips, criticisms, or even suggestions for story ideas, so feel free to drop me a review or shoot me a PM on anything TLK related, from questions to suggestions, if the fancy takes you.

Geist.


	12. TLW, Part 8

**Summary** : A sorceress contracts a witcher to capture a djinn, and everyone who has read The Last Wish collectively cringes at my lack of originality.

* * *

THE LAST WISH

* * *

VIII

* * *

Harry came tumbling out of the portal and crashed into hard ground with a mighty thud. There he laid, unmoving, breathing in and out the earthy scents of dirt and grass, of pine and conifer. He didn't need to look up to confirm that he was in the wrong place, but did so anyway, and found himself among shadows, with the still-smoking wreckage of Wezyn behind and scorched sky lingering ahead of the trees.

"Sorceress, why are we so far from—?" the witcher turned around, and the part-asked question died on his lips. Hermione was not behind him, and another look in the direction of the fires confirmed she was not ahead. _Where has she gone?_ Harry wondered.

There were only two options as Harry saw it: they'd either run afoul of the drawbacks of rapid teleportation and had gotten separated from one another, or Hermione had not yet stepped through the portal she created moments after their close call on the promontory. A few seconds of loitering around made it quite clear to the witcher which of the two theories was correct.

When no one appeared next to him, the Bear focused on the horizon and followed red.

For a short while, he was again a child on the shores of Ard Skellig. A shaggy man with shaggy hair and a shaggy beard taught him how to sneak and stalk in the great forests Freya crafted from clay and mud, the selfsame woods that Hemdall would tear through during the time of the end, Ragh nar Roog. And the sky did look a prophecy of the Last Days, streaked with flame and shrouded in smoke as it was. He pressed on, shadowing the movements he was taught all those years ago, but the song of steel stopped the witcher short. Harry crouched low, brought a hand up to grasp his own strip of steel, and listened for the song.

It was quick, nasty, and brutal. He heard the distant elegy of a man choking on his own blood, the wheezing requiem of another with a blade through his chest, but loudest of all, he heard laboured breathing and the quick patter of bare feet toward Freya's forest, followed by heavy, thudding boots and clinking chainmail. An unarmoured man was being chased. He listened for the feet and breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the sound of rustling foliage accompanying the running man.

Harry moved to intercept the man, crossing from tree-to-tree, until he saw a dark figure grasping a gleaming longsword, catching his breath against the trunk of an old evergreen:

"Baron," he grunted, and the the dark shape jumped, pointing the sword at him. "Relax, I'm not your enemy."

Baron von Steuen stepped away from the trees, and moonlight fell through them to illuminate his face. "Aren't you?" he asked, big, curled moustache twitching with distrust.

"I'm afraid I don't understand," Harry said, with genuine confusion lacing his tone. "I've been in town and on the mountain all night. What's going on?"

"What's going on? _What's going on_!?" the nobleman half-whispered, half-shouted. "The bloody Unicorns have lost their _fucking minds_ is what's going on!" The sound of chainmail jingling and platemail squeaking bore down on the forest.

"Keep your voice down, they're getting closer."

"You can hardly blame me, can you?" the Baron asked, and Harry didn't answer immediately, instead motioning for the Redanian to follow him deeper into the forest:

"I don't know," said the witcher as they moved, "I don't know what's happened, and I don't yet know who to blame. So, I ask you again: what's going on?"

The Baron shook his head and frowned. "I don't know how it began, my mind's all a jumble... but we'd retired to bed, that much I know."

"And?"

"It was fine, for the first hour or two. Then the bang came, and a rage of sound that left me awake and near-deaf, Master Witcher. The men and I stumbled out of bed and out the tent, only to be left near-blind as a great white light seared my sight. Those Kaedweni whoresons pounced on us while we were vulnerable, stabbing and slashing, accusing us of terrible things. I've only escaped because my men stood in front of me, and they'll still be upon us soon."

Harry grimaced; he hadn't trusted the Kaedweni troop and the idiot sorcerer they'd brought with them, but he hadn't expected soldiers to be quite so ruthless. "Calm yourself. If they come, I'll protect you."

"Protect me?" the Baron scoffed, "these aren't nekkers or ghouls, Master Witcher, these are men, and you've precious little experience with our ilk."

"Silver or steel, a monster is a monster, Baron. Men are simply crueler than most." Harry drew the Zerrikanian sabre that had served him so faithfully for so long, and listened again.

"What is it, Master Witcher?"

"They're nearing," said Harry. "It might be best to make a stand here."

Jackbooted thugs garbed in their national yellow drew perilously close, pushing deeper and deeper into the forest. Harry readied the blade and cursed his luck: he had known there was tension between the Redanian and Kaedweni camps, but he hadn't thought it could boil over so quickly. Sirius had warned him about the perils of getting involved in political scrapes, and Harry had blundered right into a mess all because a pretty elf had asked him to. What a fool he'd been to join this expedition.

The figures stalked out from the shadows, swords a bloody contrast to the witcher's clean steel. "Witcher," one of them said with authority. "Stand aside. This man and his crew attacked us; the sorcerer will confirm it. Justice must be served."

A lie, a poor one at that; Harry did not need superhuman senses to see it. He made a show of looking at the Baron, dressed in smallclothes and a rumpled nightshirt, then at the four armoured men who surrounded them in a semicircle.

"Do you honestly think me that stupid?" he asked.

The leader of Kaedwenis blinked. "I don't follow."

"You're wearing armour."

Teeth gnashed but for a moment. "We don't have time for this. Kill them both."

His men surged forward like a great golden wave, and Harry pushed back toward the Baron. "How long has it been since you've killed a man?" he asked the Baron, as the Kaedwenis closed distance cautiously.

"Too long," replied the Redanian, with a rueful smile. "The perils of command, I'm afraid."

The Unicorns continued their slow, relentless march, coming closer, and closer, unmindful of the danger. The witcher held his blade, eyes on the Kaedwenis, ears to the forest to listen for reinforcements quick in the coming. Five feet, that was what he wanted. Five feet. And the instant booted feet crossed that invisible threshold, he pounced. His fingers crossed, the sign was made, and a great gust of wind emerged from his hand with the strength of a sigh, and hit the encroaching soldiers with the force of a battering ram.

It may have been a long time since he killed a man, true, but Harry suspected even the indolent and good-natured baron could press an advantage when he had one. Both witcher and baron closed the distance as their quarry stumbled back. In a whirlwind, there was a leg sliced, an arm cut, a man stabbed, and an incredible feat of accuracy aimed at soft flesh between cuirass and sallet that hacked a head clean off. Four men lay, either grievously wounded, or dead, but there was little time to rest.

"Baron," said the witcher seriously. "I hear more coming. Run. Run beyond the town toward the forest and the mountains. Call for a girl named Sylvie; she may not look it, but she's harmless. If you tell her I sent you, she'll lead you someplace safe."

The Baron looked conflicted, torn between aiding the man who had risked his life for him, and saving himself. But there was no honour in both of them dying senselessly, and there was nothing more fearsome than a witcher's scowl.

So Baron von Steuen ran. He ran as far as fleet feet could take him, and left the witcher to face down a growing mob of soldiers. He faced down there were at least seven other Kaedweni soldiers, not including Master Dorcan, who brought up the rear. Hard odds, but not impossible, due to the bomb Harry fingered underneath the leg slit of his traditional bear school kaftan. Devil's Puffball, a monstrously difficult bomb to procure reagents for, and even harder to craft, but it was a witcher's last resort. Dropping this bomb would release a cloud of poison potent enough to choke any normal man caught within it do death, but not so strong to fell a witcher before he could escape its grasp.

Dorcan stepped out from behind his men, a frown to match the witcher's own on his lips. "You've killed Kaedweni soldiers, Witcher. This is a serious crime." Harry almost laughed at that:

"This is a farce," he replied. "All the Redanians dead, the Baron in smallclothes while you lounge in your armour, and you expect me to believe _they_ attacked _you_?"

"Fine, don't believe it. I didn't expect you to. But I had expected a witcher, bastion of neutrality and greed as you are, to let things take their natural course and not play the hero," Dorcan said, stepping forward. "But then again, you can't trust a witcher to act rationally. Mutants, thieves, rapists, cannibals... they say so many charming things about your lot."

"Keep still," the witcher warned. "Wouldn't want to get eaten, would you, Master Dorcan?"

"Please, you're surrounded. You'd not even come close to it."

"I'll remember that when I'm tearing the skin off your bones."

Dorcan's lips pulled back, revealing a smile as unpleasant as his demeanour. "I'll ask you only once: where is that Redanian?"

"And I'll remember you fondly when I suck the marrow from them," Harry continued, blissfully unmindful of the Kaedweni leader's question. To his credit, Dorcan did not shout, or growl, or lunge, as Harry might have expected him to. Instead he drew himself up regally, and looked to a familiar man with coals for eyes and a face streaked with the blood of innocent Redanians:

"I bore of this. We'll get it out of him, one way or another. Take him."

There was no time for the soldiers to move, only a flash, and then green, suffocating gas all around them. Harry stumbled away from the cloud that erupted around the rogue Kaedweni soldiers before it could reach him, and smiled grimly at the sound of hacking, coughing, and wheezing from within the green. Maybe he wouldn't tear the flesh off Dorcan's bones, but he would have to settle for leaving the man to choke on his own blood.

He heard the footsteps just beyond the edge of the tiny clearing where he'd butchered the Kaedwenis for their crimes, and turned. There stood Viktor, looking unharmed, Hermione, her expression unreadable as a stone statue, and Lockhart behind them, with that same dumb smile he'd seen the sorcerer wearing so many times. The three looked among each other, and Hermione nodded, striding forward to Harry, while Lockhart made his way to the cloud of dying Unicorns and blew the gas away with a wave of the hand.

Harry looked over. Some were dead. Dorcan and Harys still breathed, though they were weak and wheezy, with the pallor of men not long for the world. Others looked as though they had already passed, but the witcher's ears told him otherwise.

Whatever it was that Lockhart intended to do, Hermione stole Harry's attention from it, when she stretched out her hands and cupped his cheeks. "Harry Potter," she said. "Ever since Ilona told me who you really were, I've been thinking how you would pay for the service I rendered you all those years ago. And I've decided."

"What?" Harry asked, befuddled. Payment? Did the sorceress not scorn him for thinking she'd hold him in her debt only a night earlier? And when he last saw her, were they not on that collapsed promontory, on their way to help wounded soldiers? And now she was talking of _payment_?

"Payment, Witcher. It's time to pay the piper," she said cryptically.

"What are you talk—"

Any complaint was silenced as the sorceress's lips violently crashed into his own. His medallion jittered uncontrollably, pulsing and twisting around Harry's throat as if it were trying to strangle him. He tried to escape the kiss, but some supernatural force held him in her arms and a red haze descended over the tree tops.

The low rumble of thunder filled his senses, filled up his world with its rusted-iron din, and Harry belatedly realised he laid on the ground. A hand grasped his chin, and his head was turned to see Hermione smiling down at him through a ruby filter. There was fondness in her eyes that only served to make her look more devilish against the background:

"Are you well?" she asked.

He didn't remember speaking, but his voice rumbled out something coherent. As soon as he heard the words, they disappeared, and Harry let his head fell back to scorched earth with only the vague notion that he'd forgotten something important.

"You're a fool," Hermione said over his warring thoughts. "A brave, noble fool, but a fool nonetheless." Static electricity crackled through the air, a soft breeze picked up, carrying with it the scent of vanilla and parchment.

 _Calm. So calm._

"Come with me." His body acted independently of his sluggish mind and stood at the command. The breeze was stronger now. Vanilla intoxicated his senses. A chill went up his spine.

 _A storm's coming,_ he thought, and then the world went dark.

* * *

He awoke in chains, stripped naked, tied to a post. He was in a tent, and Dorcan was across from him, seated on a stool chair. There was blood. Lots of blood. Most of it came leaking from the witcher, but judging from the deep cuts in the his knuckles, at least some of it was Dorcan's.

"Surprised to see me?" Dorcan croaked, lower and more wheezing than his usual coarse growl, so the poison had at least done some harm to his throat.

"Not especially," Harry shrugged, testing out his voice. "the mages must have healed you."

"Aye. The elf saved my life, she did."

The elf. Amber eyes and vanilla invaded his senses, a memory strong enough to leave an impression on its own. Harry looked around, the obvious laid bare to him. The sorceress had betrayed him, leaving him in the hands of Dorcan, a man who risked international incident with every move he made. It was clear he'd been tortured, but all he felt was a deep, unfriendly cold in his bones. Perhaps he was still under the influence of the turncoat's magic.

"Don't worry," the Kaedweni said, "I've right tired myself out on you. Say what you will about witchers, but cutting you is like stabbing a brick wall and expecting it to cry out." Harry didn't care about the torture, another question burned far more fiercely inside him:

"Why?" he asked.

"Why, what?" Dorcan asked. "I've told you why, I feel like I've broken my bloody hands, and I'm in a mood for conversation."

"Not that," Harry said, and the other man perked up with curiosity. "Why kill the Redanians? What purpose does it serve other than further souring relations between your country and theirs?"

The bearded man laughed, long and loud. "You think this is about Kaedwen? I couldn't give a ploughing fuck about Kaedwen if I tried. I'm doing this for myself. Do you think me a monster for that?" Harry shook his head, remembering his disdain for his own fatherland:

"No. I can relate."

"Could you?" Master Dorcan asked thoughtfully. "I suppose you could. You are a warrior, after all. You understand," he continued, pointing at the various wounds pockmarking the witcher's already-scarred body. "You didn't hesitate to kill my men; you didn't hesitate to try and kill me."

"You weren't the first men I've killed," Harry said neutrally.

"Ah, yes, such flippancy. 'I am the big, bad mutant, and I've killed before.' Stop putting on airs, Witcher, we both know you're as saintly as Leboida behind those cat eyes, no matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise. If you weren't, you would have had the sense to turn over the Redanian."

"I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, it's just a fact. I've killed men before. It's not so hard."

"Was it ever difficult? Was the first man you killed difficult?" Dorcan hacked out a cough, and looked amused, but there was genuine earnestness in his voice, so much that it even took the took the witcher aback. Harry stopped to think, a tougher task than one might have imagined, especially when contending with the last errant wisps of whatever spell Hermione had bound him with.

"The first man I killed was a bandit who ambushed me on the side of the road with two of his mates. They were dumb orphaned lads from a few towns over, enamoured with the idea of becoming mercenaries and wandering swordsmen. It was a lucky cut, right through the soft of the neck of one of them; the sight of his head flying through the air was enough to scare the other two back into the forest. Fighting a bandit's not so difficult in the moment."

Dorcan laughed bitterly. "Self-defence isn't hard, true... _I_ had the dubious honour of being one of the soldiers at Hoare."

The witcher frowned, unsure if Dorcan was simply in a sharing mood, or if this was some form of morbid one-upmanship. "Hoare? I'm not familiar with the name."

"You wouldn't be. Dagread's been keen on keeping it quiet, but venture into the forests, and you'll find Scoia'tael gossiping about it, before they turn their arrows on you."

"What happened?"

"It was a culling," Dorcan said, a distant look in his eyes. "The menfolk somehow discovered the spirit of cross-species brotherhood, and began mixing among the elves. A generation in and more than three-quarters of the children in the town were half-elves like you."

"That would have been... fifteen years ago?" Harry asked, to a nod. "Dark times to be a half-elf in the North."

"Aye, and even darker times to secede from your country," said Dorcan. "Hoare got the idea that they were no longer part of Kaedwen due to the country's abusing nonhumans, never mind that they weren't within a hundred miles of any of our borders. We laughed at first, but when they assaulted tax collectors and census-takers, the army was called in. We marched on a surprisingly well-prepared village. They took out a few of us, but in the end, they were farmers pitting hoes and sickles against spears and swords." He shook his head. "Stupid. Did they really think one village could stand up against an entire kingdom?"

"You killed your first man there?"

"Aye. I was a new recruit, and cut down a boy no older than thirteen who charged at me with a smelting hammer."

"Was it a quick death?"

"No," said Dorcan. "No it wasn't. He kept beating the hammer against my shield and everyone around me was too taken up with their own aspiring revolutionaries to help. He was quick, but was tiring quickly. So I waited, and when he was winded, and raised that hammer slower than usual, I swiped my blade right across his belly and watched his guts come tumbling out," he continued, swallowing thickly. "You were lucky with your bandit; cutting a man's head off is a moment's work: over and done with quick. But when you disembowel a man, he dies slow, screaming for his mother... his innards are hot and sticky and _Gods the smell_ —" he broke off, "—he was just a boy."

"You say all that, and yet there are—what, twelve? fifteen?—good Redanian men out there, butchered the same way?" Harry asked, unmoved by the other man's story.

"Do us both a favour and don't moralise, Witcher, you've nearly downed the same number single-handedly," Dorcan said with a cluck of his tongue. "It's all a question of price, anyway. They tell you that you'll make enough coin to feed and clothe your family, that you'll make friends, that you'll get out of your small corners and see the world... not once do they warn you of what they'll make you give."

"What they'll make you give," Harry repeated, not questioning but not entirely understanding either.

"What's family to a man who has killed children for his country? What's seeing the world to a lad who has seen friends die of everything from sword to disease to starvation? What's anything to that sort of man? What do you give to that sort of man?" He asked, though Harry suspected he wasn't supposed to answer.

"And your solution is gold?" Harry taunted anyway, though caution might have bade him to be quiet. "How ordinary."

"Only mutants and morons scoff at normalcy. Ordinary is good: I'll stop soldiering; I'll drink and whore until the world's bubbly, and then maybe I'll die smiling."

"S'pose it's not that bad."

"Isn't it? Not a half-bad contract I was given, innit?"

Harry shook his head, confused. "What contract?"

"Don't play dumb with me now," a tinge of dignified annoyance rose at the back of his torturer's throat. "You—never mind. The sorceress will come soon and heal your wounds. And then we'll begin again at dawn. Before you die, witcher, I will know where the Redanian, and that treasure, is."

"Don't be so sure," Harry grinned bloodily. "I did make you a promise."

Dorcan made no sign of having heard the witcher's last threat as he left the tent. Left alone, with no sense of time but an immense tiredness crashing over him, Harry soon fell back into the unconscious world.

* * *

When he next awoke, Hermione stood before him, an indescribable look on her pale face. Her hands were on his body, and a warmth flowed from them into his cold wounds, sealing them.

"You are an idiot, Witcher Harry," she said simply.

"So I am," Harry replied. "But better an idiot than whatever you are, Sorceress Hermione."

"They'll try to kill you now. You should have just given up that fool Baron. Had it been the other way around, he would have done so to you," Harry flinched at the sorceress's words. The Hermione he had known was light and airy to an extent that verged on nauseating, so unlike the tales he'd heard of sorceresses, but this sneering belle conformed to every stereotype.

"Finally, your true colours show."

The elf's eyes flashed. "Shut your mouth, you bloody fool. I am trying to _save your life_ now that you've blundered within an inch of losing it."

"Don't play dumb, you knew what would happen. Why else would I end up in alone in a forest while you made it fine to the Etolian and Lockhart?"

Hermione shrugged, uncaring. "You are not a sorcerer. I cannot always account for what happens when someone without the power travels through a portal."

"Tell me a few more sweet little lies, you've a lovely voice for it."

"You would like the truth, then? The truth is very simple. You woke up, well after Dorcan and his brutes set about maiming you. Even now you don't feel any pain. Have you wondered why?" She gazed imperiously at him. "It's the spell I put on you. You felt no pain, I am healing you, and I will try to set you free. If that's a betrayal to you then I will let you deal with the Kaedwenis alone. Because there's a bottle with untold power in it, held in the hands of a madman, and you are getting in the way of my finding it."

"A madman? You know who took the djinn?"

"I imagine, had you the time to thoroughly investigate that sorcerer's death, you would understand as well as I do, but we've neither the time nor ability to recreate it. But you shouldn't fear, I've done your sleuthing for you."

"Have you? Then who killed the thieves?"

"Easy, but long. The answer starts well back in Oxenfurt, when we found the binding rod and the lamp in that shack by the river. I went in first, to check for any magical traps awaiting us. Do you remember?"

"I remember," said Harry; he remembered the roasted pork cooking on a spit outside of the shack more clearly than the interior of it, but he did remember.

"There was hair inside, a pretty little blond lock," Hermione continued, "and hair is—"

"—A lock of hair is very valuable to a mage, I know."

Hermione nodded, beaming in a way that seemed entirely inappropriate for the situation they were in. "Absolutely. You can do a thousand things to a man if you've a lock of his hair, the most mundane of which, of course, is to identify them by brewing a potion. That being said, the process of creating said potion is a long and arduous task that I simply hadn't the time to accomplish myself."

"So?"

"I sought out the help of one with the time to make the concoction," said the elf, curling her lip as though remembering a particularly unsavoury memory. "There's a master alchemist in service of a duke who runs a town not but a few days ride from Oxenfurt. An odious man, but he's the best at what he does."

"The wyvern contract," Harry said, realisation dawning on him. Of course she had an ulterior motive in going to that town; no one would go out of their way to help a lowly witcher.

Hermione nodded. "I didn't get a chance to use it, however. You were at my back the rest of the way to Oxenfurt, and Viktor was the same to Novigrad and beyond. The only time I was able to slip away was in the small fishing town near Ghelibol."

Harry remembered Hermione's lone sojourn into the forest when he'd gone looking for Susan's colleague. At the time, he had thought the sorceress was rather lamely attempting to spy on him, but it looked as though she'd been up to much more, instead. Quickly, Harry's suspicious nature took over.

"Why hide it all? Why not just come out and tell me?"

"I had only just met you. Why would I trust you with such sensitive information?"

"Why wouldn't you? You were the one to hire me, after all."

Hermione's tongue clicked in annoyance, suggesting the witcher had her on the defensive, and that he might get something if he pressed further. That said, it was a delicate balance, and he didn't have the luxury of interrogating the sorceress, not in the state he was. One wrong word, and Harry could convince Hermione he was a threat rather than an ally. If that happened, he was as good as dead.

"So, who did you see?" the witcher relented, living to fight another day.

"Someone that I couldn't quite believe was so diabolical, at the time," the brunette murmured cryptically. "I refused to believe it, at first. But when I saw him at that keep, I started to think otherwise. So, I planted a tracking charm on him. Nearly untraceable. Even Ilona wasn't able to detect it." Hermione abruptly fell silent, and fingered the stone that lay between her collarbones, attached to a simple black choker. The stone laid there, solid and unmoving,

There was soft thought, for a moment, scattered half-scraps of evidence committed to memory now rearranging themselves in a pattern that made sense. There was but silence and thought, and then, realisation.

"I see," said Harry. "What was the point in coming back, then?"

"Come now, isn't that one obvious?"

"To reclaim the evidence and tie off loose ends."

"As it ever was," sighed the sorceress. "So far, he's done an admirable job. If all goes well, everyone but you and the Redanians go home much happier, a great deal richer, and none wiser."

"Hurray."

"Don't pout," Hermione said, crossing her arms, "we're on the same side. I don't ally with thieves and murderers if I can help it."

"Have you a plan, then? Or am I to sit here and wait until morning?"

"I'm working on it; I don't know where he's hidden it."

"What's there to work on? Most of the Kaedwenis are poisoned and half-dead. If you break me out now and give me my swords, I'll bleed it out of him, sorcerer or no."

"Contrary to how it looks, I don't condone torture, and I certainly don't condone murder. It's not my place to judge, nor do I wish it to be. That's a job for Dumbledore and the Brotherhood of Sorcerers to do, not you or myself."

"How very witcherly of you."

Hermione ignored his quip. "I'll find out where he's hidden the damned thing. _Gently_. And then I'll come find you."

"And what am I to do during the long meanwhile?"

"Escape, obviously. You're a clever boy, I've no doubt you've already thought of six different ways to spirit yourself away, and I could use the distraction of you escaping to aid my own search."

"Two," said Harry.

"Two?" Hermione repeated.

"Two. I see two ways out of here, not six."

"Well," said the elf with a light smirk and an appreciative glance up-and-down his now-uninjured body, "perhaps I underestimated you after all, Master Witcher." In a swirl of fine silk robes, she turned her back on the mutant, and disappeared through the front flap of the tent. Harry looked to his right arm, tied uselessly against a wooden beam, and dislocated his shoulder. A minute later, and a hand was free. Another moment passed, as bone was reset to socket and Harry applied some of the finer uses of the igni sign on his other bindings, the ropes fell away easily. The witcher stumbled over to a table of bloodied tools, and grasped a stained, curved knife.

Darkness had fallen long ago, and Harry suspected that the hour was fast approaching midnight. Normal men wouldn't be able to see very well, and Harry had all he needed to make a convenient escape. Dorcan would be awfully disappointed come morning.

The witcher, all wounds and scrapes healed by the woman who had caused those wounds and scrapes to begin with, crouched low and stalked to the back. He stabbed the canvas with the torturer's blade, and cut down, down, until he had created a flap to match the one at the front of the tent. Instantly, the smell of wet earth and the spatter of rain kicked the flap aside.

"A storm?" Harry murmured to himself. Turning back, he looked out the front entrance once more, where the night seemed as calm as could be. "Strange." Strange indeed it was, but if it was raining outside, Harry could use the reduced visibility to his advantage. Perhaps he could even thin the ranks of any remaining Kaedwenis before completing his disappearing act.

He stepped into the rain, still aware that his armour and blades were gone, hidden away somewhere in this small complex of tents. But it was too dangerous to go in that direction now, so he'd have to improvise. There were clothes and weapons among the jewels and gold hidden away in the treasure cave, finery, but anything was better than being barefoot and naked in a thunderstorm.

So, he would start with gathering his bearings and learning exactly where they'd gone during his leave of sanity, before making his way back to the cave. Then he'd go looking for the baron, with hope the man hadn't gotten himself killed.

It wasn't particularly difficult to determine where they had taken him: the various red tents among the gold ones, and the steep drop of a mountain path into a valley, suggested that this was the original campsite the two factions had used while he, Hermione, and Viktor had been out hunting nightwraiths. _Good,_ he thought, _need to go north, back toward Wezyn._

And he did exactly that, keeping toward the trees and away from the light of the camp. The rain had kept all the Unicorns in their barracks, huddled away from the rain, unwilling to venture out and even patrol the area. Harry counted his blessings and disappeared into the green There, he avoided the soft earth and stepped on hard, rocky tree roots and risked cutting his feet to minimise the chance of his tracks being discovered. Fortunately, with the rain coming down as it was, any tracks left behind were likely to be washed away come morning, so Harry didn't worry himself too much over the prints he left behind.

The forest undulated and steepened the further he went into it, and Harry felt a strange mixture of elation and disappointment: elation that he had gotten away from the Kaedwenis, and disappointment that it had been so easy to escape.

Eventually, the earth straightened out, and Harry passed by the burned-out hovels of what used to be a sleepy mountain village, now silent as the grave its once-inhabitants were unceremoniously buried in. Soon, the witcher came upon the graves and stopped a moment to smile grimly at the continued quiet, and then moved on.

By the time he reached the cave, he was soaked, tired, and a nearly impaled by a glittering spear.

"Witcher?" a familiar voice said in the darkness. It was the Baron, dressed in traditional Redanian finery. "Why are you _naked_?"

"It's a boring story," Harry replied tersely. "Have you seen armour or weapons here?"

"There are plenty of swords and axes to be found. Armour, however? Nothing particularly useful among the whole lot. It's all gilded, ceremonial shite that'll crush inward at first blow from a mace. There a some clothes like mine over by that gaudy throne, a pair of boots by the chest of pearls, and I'd not doubt there are some trousers stitched from mermaid hair or some such. None that are really battle-worthy, however."

Harry was off immediately, venturing into the antechamber, and finding all the Baron had indicated (though the trousers had been made of sturdy leather, rather than mermaid hair), he slipped them all on. And, among the piles of gold, he found a particularly well-made sword in the Ofieri style, which was none too different from the Zerrikanean one he'd left behind.

The Baron, patriotic as ever, was all smiles when he saw the witcher emerge in the garb of his people. "Ah," he mused while making a show of inspecting Harry, "it's quite a good look on you, Master Witcher. Shave the sides of your head, and cut that mop down, and I'd make a Redanian out of you yet." The witcher smiled back, tightening the sash around his waist. For once, regal dress didn't require a doublet that choked him, nor trousers that were impossible to move in. Perhaps the Redanians had it right.

But this wasn't a time for levity, no matter how dearly they wished it to be. "How did you find your way here?" Harry asked.

"Why," said the nobleman, "your friend here showed me the way."

As if on cue, a great ball of black smoke drifted into the room, and phased into the form of a giggling young girl. She laughed and waved fondly at Harry, who returned the gesture genially:

"Hey Sylvie," he greeted, "thanks for taking care of him; I'll take it from here."

The shadowy form nodded, and then wagged its finger in mock disapproval. Harry wondered why the child would do such a thing, and then it hit him. "Don't worry, I haven't forgotten my promise. Once this is done, we'll play."

Seemingly satisfied, Sylvie returned to her natural form and drifted out from the antechamber.

"Delightful child," said the Baron. "Are most spirits like her?"

"Sadly, no."

"Huh. A shame," the other man said, and then promptly changed subject: "But, what do we do now?"

"We must wait. The thief I met on the mountain had been murdered, with the djinn stolen by the time we finished cleansing Wezyn of the angry spirits, and the sorceress reckons she knows who took it."

"She does? Who was it?"

"The second thief, of course: Gilderoy Lockhart."

"The dowdy sorcerer that came with us?"

"The very same."

"You're having me on, aren't you?" the Baron exclaimed with a disbelieving laugh. "The man's a _moron_."

"A man need not be intelligent to be a ruthless murderer."

"True enough, I suppose. The magical types are always more conniving than they let on," said the nobleman, to no disagreement from the witcher. "Well, then... what are we to do?"

"Hermione seems adamant the man's gotten hold of the flask which contains our wish-granter, but that he's gone and hidden it somewhere. She says she'll try to find wherever that hiding place is, and come to us once she's found the bloody thing. I imagine we'll sneak right out from under their noses once that's done."

"That easy, is it? Lady Hermione is still alive and in the company of those murderers for a reason; can you really trust her?"

"Probably not. I don't trust her any more than I do Lockhart. It's an alliance of convenience, or desperation, mores like. A portal is, ironically, our safest way out from here, since they're guarding a bottleneck area of the pass. So we'll have to hope the sorceress comes through."

Both men laughed.

"Putting our faith in a sorceress?" the Baron said mirthfully. "We really are at our rope's end, aren't we?"

* * *

Hermione did not come in the night. Nor did she come at a dawn obscured by clouds and downpour. By midmorning, Harry worried for her safety. The Baron was no better: "We ought to go back; that lass is our only way out of here, and if she's dead, we're dead."

Soon enough, Harry agreed. So Harry found himself traversing the valley once more, this time with with clothes to protect him from the rain and a companion to watch his back as they made their latest trek back through the forest.

They heard the clash only as the oaks and sycamores thinned.

The witcher stopped first, and Baron von Steuen followed suit nearly immediately. They listened, and the song of steel came whispering, carried on the wind and through the leaves:

"A skirmish?" asked The Baron, his words punctuated by distant shouts from the belligerents.

"Possibly," replied the witcher, "the yellow-bellies are after the gold in the cave. Cutthroats are like to turn on each other for that sort of treasure."

"Good," growled the nobleman with venom. "Those scoundrels butchered good men for that treasure, good Redanian men. May they choke on their steel."

When they reached the edge of the wood, the two interlopers did not quite stumble onto the civil war they'd been expecting. There was a skirmish, to be sure, but Dorcan's men did not cannibalise each other, as Baron von Steuen might have hoped. Instead, they ganged up on a solitary figure wreathed in black fur, and nursing an abdominal wound.

It was Viktor. He fought back nobly, viciously, but Harry smelled the truth of the matter, as he always did. He had the scent of a mortally wounded wolf, growling and snapping in vain hope that their fierce struggle might postpone their death throes a moment longer.

"We should help," said The Baron, though Harry suspected he cared far more about avenging his fallen comrades than rescuing the Etolian.

"We should," agreed Harry, as three of the Kaedwenis, Dorcan standing just behind, advanced on Viktor, "but it would have to be quick. Another cut like that, and the sorceress's man is as good as dead."

"Feel free to attack, then; I'll follow your lead," replied the Baron quickly.

Harry wasted no time, darting out from the treeline back toward the tents, with the Redanian following close behind. No words needed to be said; the plan was simple: they'd circle around and attack the Kaedweni soldiers from behind, and Harry had the perfect entry point in mind.

He bid the Baron wait in the secluded area behind the makeshift barracks, and pulled back the slit canvas of the tent he'd escaped from the night before, and peeked inside. A small grin played unbidden at his lips, for a man sat on a rickety three-legged stool inside, back facing the witcher, too enthralled with the clash outside to turn around. It was Harys, the seedy-looking, capable scout from when the established crew made their first sojourn into this accursed valley.

As he gripped the knife stolen from that very marquee, the faintest sense of pity washed over the witcher over killing someone as skilled as this man in such a cowardly manner. But then he heard the man chuckle lowly at the mayhem as though at a mumming, and Harry's traitorous sense of mercy fled over hill and dale, leaving him only with grim resolve.

It was easy to sneak up on the man; for all his skill as a tracker, no man of natural means could hear a witcher step up to them, and no man of natural means could easily match a witcher's strength when the mutant wrapped strong arms round his neck and pulled him out from the stool he was sitting on. Harys didn't have but a moment to struggle before the blade in the witcher's free hand jabbed through the soft flesh of his throat and pulled sideways. A gout of blood sprayed forward, and the scout gurgled something, maybe a warning to his comrades, but it was never loud enough for them to hear.

The witcher dropped the body, poked his head out from the back-end of the tent and recalled the Baron. The elder man spat on the still body, and then grimaced at all the tools laid out on the table:

"Murderers, robbers, treasonous scum, and now torturers, too," he said, "their existence is an affront to the gods."

Harry said nothing; they stepped in Harys' draining lifeblood as they made their way toward the other exit.

Outside the torture tent, the whirlwind of steel continued. Viktor had permanently downed two men and relieved another of his arm, who lay on the ground in shock, but the Etolian was still outnumbered two-to-one, and Dorcan still skulked behind them, waiting to finish the job in case his last men did not:

"Just give up," he said, as Harry and the Baron peeked out from the front exit of the marquee. "Lockhart already knows what your whore is planning; she's as good as dead, and you're injured. If you give up, and help us find that fucking witcher and the Redanian, we'll give you cut of the treasure and you'll live the rest of your life like a king."

Viktor blocked a blow, side-stepped another, and strafed out of the way from a second barrage. The Kaedweni men stopped attacking for just a moment, so as to give the Etolian time to think:

"I heff killed two of your men. Maimed one more. Vy should I believe you vill show me mercy?" he asked, gripping his own wound.

Dorcan stroked his bearded chin and his lips curled into a vulpine grin. "They're dead. And the other one is close. If he survives, then he gets a cut. But I have little doubt that you'll injure or kill what's left of my people before I have to put you down. I'd like to avoid further bloodshed."

Harry crept out from the tent, and caught Viktor's eye as he moved toward Dorcan, kilij drawn and ready to cut the moment he got in arm's reach.

"And you are asking me to betray the woman I svore myself to for this?" Viktor's eyes moved away from Harry's form quickly, so as not to alert the bearded cutthroat that death encroached on him.

"It's not betrayal if she's already dead," said the Kaedweni. "Lockhart took her up the mountain pass," he continued with a finger pointed in the direction of another one of the many peaks that ringed the valley. "He knows she conspired in the witcher's escape. He knows she wants whatever's in that bottle for herself, and used that to lure her up all alone. In all likelihood, he's shot that elven bitch in the back with some explosion hex the moment they were out of earshot."

Harry came closer, closer, but as he got within seven feet, he heard hysterical huffing nearby.

"Kronay," Dorcan identified the noise, which came from an armless man on the ground. "What is it?"

His bloodied stump pulled up, and pointed behind the Kaedweni leader, right at the witcher. Harry grimaced, and drove his sword straight for Dorcan's back, but he felt steel clanging against his own, and Dorcan dove away. The unicorn crashed into the ground and quickly scrambled up to his knees, with a familiar curved blade held defensively in front of him.

"That's my sword," said the witcher.

Dorcan looked up and laughed, before waving the blade shortly. "It's quite a good blade, but you seem to have found adequate armaments."

"It's alright," replied the witcher, "but I'll be sure to take mine back once I separate you from your head."

"Still trying to kill me, eh, witcher? Have you nothing better to do?"

"I made you a promise," Harry replied just as the Baron came up to stand side-by-side with the witcher.

"And you, Etolian, are you with them or us?"

Viktor snorted. "Them. Did you think I vould betray my employer like that? I am not an honourless dog like yo-"

Dorcan spat in annoyance. "Oh, fuck you and get on with it. I have no patience for pompous lectures." He stood, and the two men who had been clashing with Viktor, drew back-to-back with their commander in a triangular, three pronged phalanx.

"I vould be glad to," said Viktor. "But, first, Witcher."

Harry said nothing, but glanced up at the fur-wrapped Etolian to indicate he was listening.

"Go find Lady Hermione, if vat this _kusse_ says is true, she needs your help more than ve do."

"You'll be outnumbered and injured."

The Baron interrupted, this time. "Two on three? Hardly outnumbered."

"I heff already defeated three of them with this vound. Three more is nothing. Go."

Harry sighed, but Viktor was right. No matter how badly he wanted to be the one to finish Dorcan off, Hermione, if still alive, was locked in a much more dangerous struggle than a few men with swords could ever be. With a grimace, he shuffled backward, away from the fracas. Just as he was about to turn his back on them, Dorcan's voice cut through the bitter chill of the rain:

"Running away, are you? I thought you were a warrior!" The soldier laughed loudly, throwing his arms up in a mocking gesture. The witcher's dispassionate gaze fell upon the Kaedweni, and he curled his fingers into a complicated twist. Nothing could be seen, but they felt a dark power skirt by them, like an arrow that had just missed target.

Something heavy and metal clattered against the few stone pebbles under a deluge of muddy water, and that took everyone's eyes off the witcher. Next to Dorcan, one of his soldiers had dropped his sword, and stood, limp-shouldered.

"Regan?" The other infantryman asked his suddenly-unresponsive friend. "Pick up yer sword, yeh blithering idiot!"

But Regan didn't pick up his sword. He merely looked up at his comrade and to his commander with a dopey smile and a far-away stare in his tarry eyes; then his arms stiffened and lowered to the belt he kept his weapons on. They watched as a hand, garbed in a lobstered gauntlet, grasped a bone-handled knife notched on the belt just adjacent to his sword's scabbard, and drew it with a flourish.

Dorcan looked back to the witcher, whose unnatural gold stare bore into his own, and they both knew what was to come:

"Infantryman!" Dorcan shouted wildly, "Drop the knife and pick up your sword! We've Redanians to kill!"

Again, his man did not listen, but stared at his own reflection in the polished mirror sheen of the dagger he held. Dorcan made to lunge at Regan, but stopped short, and was forced to parry a lethal strike from Viktor. The other infantryman tried the same, and faced the same resistance from Baron von Steuen. And in that time, Regan stopped admiring the blade, and positioned it for a killing blow. With necrophage speed, the bewitched man drove the blade into his own flesh, where the jaw and throat met. Though he gurgled, and blood quickly poured from his mouth, the faraway look never left his eyes, and he never once appeared to be in pain, from the time he stabbed himself, to the moment he collapsed to the ground, unmoving.

When Dorcan and the witcher next met eyes, there was wild terror in the bearded man's eyes, and a newfound understanding of what kind of monster he had been tempting with his taunts and torture. In truth, Harry's actions disgusted himself as much as it did his enemies, but he would gain no advantage from humanising himself only moments after doing something so inhuman.

"As I said, Master Dorcan," said the witcher, feigning disinterest as he turned away, "killing a man's not so hard."

"Witcher!" shouted the commander, but Harry ignored him:

"It's two-on-two now, Viktor. I like those odds."

And like that, the air filled with the sudden metallic screech of battle, and the iron grunting of men an inch from death. But the cacophony faded as Harry retreated up the pass, and turned down a side path, where a great mountain loomed in the distance.

* * *

Up above barbed cliffs and treacherous, crumbling paths, Harry found Hermione alive, well, and in conversation with Lockhart near the peak of the mountain. They stood in what appeared to be a circular patch of mostly level ground, surrounded by a half-circle of rows and rows of stone seats cut into the side of the mountain. Harry stopped and flattened himself against a high wall before they saw him. He had come with every intention of helping Hermione defeat a murderous sorcerer, but now seeing them speak candidly, those old doubts arose and he found himself eavesdropping rather than interfering.

"What a shame," the golden-haired man clucked his tongue in mock disappointment. "Isn't that a great shame, Lady Hermione? Surely you didn't think I'd simply leave you alone with the witcher without some way of knowing what you were discussing."

The woman in question sneered at Lockhart. "Indeed," she said insincerely.

"That's your problem, Hermione, you think smarter than everyone else around you," he said, his mocking edge replaced with rising anger. "But maybe you're right; I fell into your trap: I've killed friends, soldiers, and much more for your vanity, haven't I?"

Hermione's expression went dead. "Don't go convincing yourself you're the hero in all this."

Harry squinted in confusion. He felt like like there was something he was missing or had just missed, as though he'd walked into a tavern looking for a drink and a conversation about politics, but instead stumbled on two scholars debating the merits of participatory economics.

"What, and _you_ are? Don't make me laugh," Lockhart's voice had lost all of its typical jaunty humour now.

"Near as I can tell, I've not murdered anyone. You, on the other hand... murder, torture, theft. You're quite the monster, Gilderoy."

There was silence: an uncomfortable, long silence while Lockhart stood alone with his thoughts. Hermione gave him the space to do so. "Don't play games," he said, after a time. "I may be a monster, but you're a wolf like the rest of us."

Harry cursed under his breath. All he could understand were half-utterances and phrases that had secret, double meanings to them. They were speaking in riddles, and he was woefully unequipped to make sense of them. So, he stepped out from behind the wall, and made his way toward the two figures. As he approached, sword drawn, Lockhart turned on him with a beaming white smile:

"Ah, Witcher, how good of you to join us!" he greeted jovially, gesturing from himself, to Hermione, to Harry. "Am I to assume that this means my entourage are... no longer of this world?"

"As good as." Harry shrugged, as he left the jagged path and joined the two on level ground.

"You were supposed to let me deal with this," Hermione said, her tone curiously accusing for someone who was supposed to be in danger. "This would have ended without bloodshed."

"You took too long. And you should be thankful, had the Baron and I not come when we did, Viktor would have been killed facing six men alone." Hermione fell quiet at the witcher's rebuke, fiddling with the hem of her jacket instead, and Lockhart took advantage of the silence:

"Witcher," he addressed Harry again. "Do you know where we stand right now?"

"No, and I don't care."

"I know you witchers take delight in your boorishness and martial skill alone, but do humour me for a moment," sniped the sorcerer, clearly irked. "Will you do that for me?"

Harry bowed, so as to indicate Lockhart could go on, but he kept his sword in hand as an unspoken warning.

"One-thousand years ago, these mountains were covered with elven towns and cities, all centres of learning and the arts for everyone to partake in. Noble, isn't it?" he said, with the false air of someone who had great affection for the arts. Perhaps this was why Hermione snorted in amusement, and drew a baleful glare from her magical compatriot. "This particular place, was a theatre." he finished, pointing at the carved stone steps elevated above them.

"Fascinating," drawled Harry.

"It's especially appropriate that this story ends here, considering what a mummer's farce it's been."

"How do you figure?"

"Why, ask your darling sorceress!"

And so, Harry did exactly that. "What on earth is he talking about?"

"Go on, Lady Hermione."

"I'm not sure what he's talking about, Master Witcher," replied Hermione. There was defiance in her eyes.

An ugly smile overtook Lockhart's handsome face; in that moment, he and Lucius Malfoy appeared as brothers. A hand reached into his robes, and pulled out a bottle with a bright, silvery substance swirling inside it. Hermione's eyes widened:

" _How_?" she murmured, half in awe, and half in terror.

"As I said, _darling Hermione_ ," he spat her name with disgust. "You're not as smart as you think you are. It only took a few spells to fool the great Hermione Granger, perhaps I really could outwit Dumbledore himself!"

"So that's it, is it?" Harry asked. "You had the djinn on you the whole time?"

"I did, actually. But we're straying. Hermione knows _exactly_ what I'm talking about. And she's best tell you; if I don't hear the right answer, then I uncork this bottle, and we three take a wild ride at the spirit's mercy. Do you understand?" He didn't wait for Hermione to nod or shake her head. "Now, tell it true, who stole the spirit inside this bottle from Ban Ard?"

"You, of course."

"And who convinced me to steal it?" his grin widened, and his teeth managed to glint even in the rain.

Hermione closed her eyes, and breathed out, before answering, "I did."

Time seemed to slow. Harry turned to Hermione, an unasked question on his lips and a genuine look of sorrow etched into her countenance. And Gilderoy Lockhart laughed long and loud into the storm.

* * *

 **A/N:** Hey there, been a while! Once again, the chapter length got away from me. There's only about 4-5000 words left in this arc, but I didn't want to release another mammoth 15,000 word chapter, purely because I feel it's a chore to read something that long on one page. There has been some restructuring to the plot in the time I've been away, so there's likely going to be another arc in Novigrad (that will bring the HP trio altogether for the first time) slotted in before "Aen Saevherne", which was supposed to be the arc after TLW.

Chapter Notes:

The Spell: Some book-readers might recognise Hermione's 'kiss' spell that she uses on Harry. This is almost the exact same spell Yen uses on Geralt in the canon "The Last Wish", except Yen used her power over Geralt to embarrass him and the people who mistreated her in Rinde, while Hermione essentially uses it to roofie Harry into submission.

Thanks for reading,  
Geist.


	13. TLW, Final Part

**Summary** : A sorceress contracts a witcher to capture a djinn, and everyone who has read The Last Wish collectively cringes at my lack of originality.

* * *

THE LAST WISH

* * *

IX

* * *

"You did," repeated the golden-haired man. "You told me about the djinn, you told me where it was. Why did you do that?"

Hermione hesitated, and only spoke once Lockhart made a show of reaching for the bottle's stopper. "I needed it. I still do. You and your damned partner were to get one wish each, and I the last."

"Oh, there's still one wish left, don't you worry, Lady Granger."

"So that's how you knew who killed the sorcerer. What of all that evidence of yours? The hairs, the charms... Why involve me at all?" Harry asked, to no answer from the sorceress. Her jaw seemed to have wired shut.

"Made up, an elaborate fiction to keep you on her side. For what reason, I cannot possibly fathom. Perhaps you were a convenient patsy for some plot she'd dreamed up, or perhaps she's simply grown fond of you. I can see why, she's an incurable romantic that one, forever attracted to strays and lost causes."

How had he missed it? He thought back to the time they met in Oxenfurt, and investigated the Chancellor's office at the University. Then, it struck him. He had surmised that Fudge had been promised a wish from the djinn in exchange, and the other sorcerer had confirmed it. Had that been a lie, too? Or did he truly think Fudge was to be given a wish?

The witcher shook his head. _Nevermind,_ he thought, _the man is dead, likely killed by the partner he 'loved like a sibling'._ The two conspirators, alive in front of him, were the only people he could judge now.

The sorceress must have thought her wish was stolen from her and given to the Chancellor, so she hired a witcher to help her track down the thieves. Not to help anyone, not to prevent the misuse of a dangerous spirit by raiders, but to help her find recover something she goaded another person into stealing, and to unknowingly help hide the evidence of her own involvement in the crime while maintaining the appearance of being on Lockhart's side, if her spell on Harry was anything to go by.

Harry nearly laughed. He had spent weeks with her, thoroughly charmed. In the end, there was no great mystery to Hermione Granger: she was a snake in a nest of vipers, not the first, and certainly not the last. A smug, consummate conwoman, just like the rest of her ilk.

Hermione reached out to Harry, who jerked away before her hands could touch the fabric of his kontusz. "I know this sounds bad," she said, with genuine sorrow in her eyes, "but there was a good reason for it. Just give me the chance, and I swear I'll prove it to you."

"Can you believe this? Even when she admits what she's done, she refuses to admit wrongdoing. She's just as much a scoundrel as the rest of us. And that Baron of yours? If, _if_ you manage to steal the djinn back from me, he'll stab you in the back and take the damned thing for 'his country'. In fact, the only one here that is any way clean, is you, Master Witcher. Ah, poor, noble Witcher Harry, thrown into a den of wolves, with no one but the wrong people to trust."

"If she can't explain herself, then I'll deal with her," Harry started, drawing himself up. "But whatever Lady Hermione is, it doesn't change what you are."

"I see," Lockhart laughed, "so she's exchanged one lackey for another. You sure do go through them quick, Hermione dear, quite a mortality rate."

"A pity you weren't one of those statistics."

The sorcerer ignored his colleague's barbs, and refocused on Harry. "So, what then, you think you'll stop me? The witcher who has been fooled by anyone and everyone involved in our expedition! After all this, do you really think you're capable of anything?"

"Maybe I was taken advantage of, but there's one thing I excel at."

"And what's that?"

Harry didn't respond. He didn't need to. He thought the words, and he was certain that, somehow, both Hermione and Lockhart had heard them.

"Bold words, witcher," said the sorcerer, and blue flame wreathed his free hand. "Bold words."

Harry readied his blade in the classic defensive stance, readying himself for the battle to come. But Lockhart, it appeared, had no such ambitions. For a moment, instead, he looked mildly nonplussed at Harry, and then he cast the blue flames down in front of him. Harry had expected the spell to do many things; however, as great sheets of ice rose from the ground of their own accord, creating a great wall of clear frost between Lockhart and the two. A bolt of lightning lanced off the barrier impotently, sent from Hermione toward Lockhart to prevent him from raising the barrier, and arriving only a moment too late.

"Really, Harry?" Lockhart shouted whimsically from behind the ice, though there was no real humour in his tone. "Did you _really_ think I was going to stake my life on a punch-up with a witcher? I've already told you, I have _one last wish_. And there's an old story, a wives' tale, really, about djinn curses. I do very much want to see if it's real."

A manicured hand reached for the stopper on the bottle.

"Gilderoy," Hermione said, the faintest edge of desperation seizing at her. "You can't use that. Not here. You _know_ what it will do to you if you can't control it!"

"I have control of it, Hermione dear."

"Are you sure about that?" Harry interrupted bluntly, "I saw the Headmaster's office at the University. That's some fine control you've displayed."

Lockhart's eyes hardened and his tongue clicked, fingers settling around the stopper. Harry felt satisfaction, but only for a moment, when his mind sagged with a second presence:

" _Are you trying to get us killed?_ " Hermione's voice clattered around his head.

Harry didn't respond.

" _You're only making it more likely that he'll open that damned bottle!"_

 _Good. Let him. It'll be a treat when the djinn's final wish backfires on him._

 _"And when the beast is freed and turns on us?"_

Harry shrugged, not particularly caring. _You'll teleport us away. Or better yet, teleport in there now._

 _"I can't teleport past the barrier, it's a spell_ specifically designed _to block magic users from attacking you easily."_

 _Then we stick with the first plan._

 _"I can't simply let that djinn get away."_

 _You will, if you want to live._

The sorceress withdrew from his mind when she understood that his words were a threat, not a warning, and Harry could feel a vague sense of genuine hurt in her place.

"So," Harry said, unwilling to look in her direction. "Are you going to open it, or not?"

Staring deep into the other man's eyes, through the clear wall that separated them, he could see unease creep into them. No longer was Lockhart sure he had the upper hand, and no longer was he sure that he could control the spirit that swirled within the bottle he held. But desperate men often weren't wise men. And his fingers pulled up just as Harry crossed his fingers and sent the strongest igni sign he could muster at the barrier, with another fireball following closely behind from Hermione.

The wall stood intact at the end of the inferno, nary a chip or crack in it. And beyond it, the bottle was opened, and Lockhart stood in front of a great silvery mass that screamed in a language Harry couldn't understand. The crystalline wall shimmered with an unknown force that hadn't been there before the djinn was released Soon, he realised, Lockhart, too, was speaking in that same gibberish language that was neither common nor the dialect of elder speech he was familiar with.

Hermione seemed to understand, as her attempts to break through the wall became wilder and more frenzied. She threw fireball after fireball at the shield, succeeding in cracking it, but never quite blowing it open.

"Hermione!" Harry shouted, as the shrill screeches of djinn threatened to drown out his own voice, "What's he saying? What's the wish?"

Another great flaming gout erupted from her hands and fell limp against the wall, and Hermione fell to her knees, exhausted. "I don't know! It's an old curse, but no one truly knows what it does! I doubt even Dumbledore himself knows!"

"Not to be dull, but shouldn't we be running, then?"

Hermione looked up from the ground, and glared at him in a way that suggested he truly was a dullard. "It's a _curse_! Running away from it won't do anything! Only stopping Lockhart will!"

By the time Hermione had finally apprised Harry of the situation, Lockhart had already finished speaking, a triumphant smirk on his lips. The djinn growled loudly behind him, and a pulse of white force emanated out from it. In an instant, the wall Hermione couldn't get past shattered all around them.

There was nothing between them and the djinn now, save Lockhart, who didn't look at all in the mood to help them. For a very long moment, time stood still. Then another gust of energy flew out from the silver sphere, faster this time, and Harry didn't have the time to blink as the gust struck him and sent him over on his back, into the black.

But, in a moment, he was conscious again. Alive and well, and looking into the storming sky above Wezyn. He sat up, and saw Hermione struggling to her feet. Their eyes locked, and suddenly when locked in an amber gaze, Harry felt a great deal _different_ , but still very much alive. It took some effort to tear his eyes away from her, but in the end he did, facing forward and finding Gilderoy Lockhart staring dumbly at them, with djinn motionless behind him. He was no longer smiling."

Slowly, he turned back to the djinn, and shouted some more at djinn, which responded in a way that sounded oddly smug to the witcher's ears. Presently, Hermione began laughing softly. She had a lovely laugh, Harry thought dazedly.

"What are they saying?" Harry asked, shaking his head to clear it.

"Lockhart thought the curse was going to destroy us. Fire and brimstone and the like, I suppose. It turns out djinns have a very different idea of what destruction is."

"And what's that?"

Hermione's smile faded, and her eyes met his once more. Harry felt something stir at his soul, and immediately, he knew what had changed. He quickly thought of Susan, and felt nothing. Harry knew she was thinking of someone, too, and he knew that she, too, felt nothing. Presently, he too, began laughing.

In a way, they had been destroyed.

Not that would satisfy Lockhart. His shouts became louder and angrier, and the djinn's replies became terser and terser. Harry already knew what was coming, but he was far too weak to stand. Hermione seemed to be doing only marginally better, but she managed to stand, only to draw a rod from the inside of her jacket, hidden within the stitching. Harry vaguely recalled it from their time in Oxenfurt. A binding rod, she'd called it.

"Really," Harry tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a gasp, "even now?"

"This has to be done, Harry."

She limped over to Harry as a rumble came from up the mountain, and one side of the sphere turned into a claw, that slashed at Lockhart with speed, grace, and poise of a career swordsman. The man fell over, in a heap of expensive robes, now sullied with his own blood. He was still breathing, if only raggedly, but it appeared only to be the beginning of his suffering. From the peak only a few hundred feet above, a great flood of snow half-packed with water bore down on the precarious patch of level rock.

"Honestly," Hermione murmured, and then spoke in the elder tongue. Momentarily, a bright orange barrier encircled the two, held aloft by one of her hands, while the other held the binding rod pointed at the djinn, who looked ready to race off. Only now did she spare the witcher a glance. "I know you don't have much of it left, but, _please_ , just trust me."

After all that had happened, she still had the nerve to talk of trust. If he was capable, Harry would have run her through then and there. But, he wasn't. Whatever the djinn had done to him left him feeling boneless and tired. And, now that the only thing between him and certain death by avalanche or djinn was Hermione's barrier, any harm to her would only be further detrimental to his health.

A light blue arc burst out from the rod and raced toward the fleeing djinn, eventually capturing it and holding it still.

A great roar enveloped Harry's senses, just as he was beginning to get to his feet, and sent him crashing back down to the ground once more.

"I know a tiny bit about your kind," Hermione said in Common, though by the way the djinn reacted, Harry surmised it could still understand her. "You may look like a spirit, but you can still be harmed, whether by the blade of a witcher in front, an avalanche above, or a bottle below. It makes little difference. So, if you wish, you can do nothing, and even though we'll all be crushed underneath it eventually, I will use the last of my strength and imprison you in that bottle once more, so that you will never be found," Hermione said, pointing a small, stoppered bottle, that had fallen from Lockhart's hands just inside the far reaches of Hermione's barrier, which the first bits of snow and slush peppered.

Harry scrambled on hands and knees over to the bottle, grabbing it and uncorking it once more, ready for what was coming next. He just hoped there was a point to all of this, and he hadn't simply been satisfying a sorceress's vanity this whole time.

"But I can let you go, if you promise to fulfill a wish of mine. Two of them, actually."

There was more roaring, and a great boulder of ice crashed against the barrier, causing it to sag only for a moment, before the ice rolled harmlessly off the barrier and down past the edge of the ridge they stood on. Hermione remained unfazed, and began muttering archaic elder speech under her tongue. She slowly pulled her outstretched arm in toward her. To the djinn's visible fury, its spherical body drew in toward the bottle in tandem with Hermione's arm. It struggled, to no avail, even as the more ice and snow poured down onto the ridge and further below. Harry watched with dark amusement, between the battle of wills between woman and spirit, and the still body of Gilderoy Lockhart quickly being buried under the racing snow.

Eventually, it spoke, and Hermione smiled grimly. Now faced with the very real prospect of being imprisoned for another eternity, it seemed to have become quite amenable.

"I don't think I need to warn you that it's obviously trying to trap you?" Harry asked pointedly.

"No, you do not," Hermione said, lowly, but just as pointedly.

The djinn spoke again, appearing to have accepted its fate. Though Harry couldn't understand the exact words that were spoken, he knew it was asking Hermione what she desired.

The sorceress's grim smile widened only the slightest bit. "I wish only for you to leave the kingdoms of men; you may go wherever you wish, so long as it is as far from this continent as you can possibly travel. There you will neither help nor hinder another being again, living or otherwise, until the day of your destruction. And for the second wish, be a dear and stop this avalanche at once."

A loud screech, like that of a sword scraping against armour, but multiplied tenfold, escaped the djinn and reverberated around the valley powerfully. It was the sound of despair; it was the sound of defeat. In a heartbeat, the avalanche that had been beating away at their shield had disappeared, and there was only the djinn and Hermione. And the sorceress remained rigid until she heard the beast agree to the first wish. And when the words came, the archaic elder tongue that signaled the djinn's compliance, Hermione finally let go.

Without wasting a moment, the airy sphere fled the ridge, fled the valley, and fled The Continent as fast as it could.

And for a few blessed seconds, all that was left in its wake was a great and beautiful silence. Hermione turned back to him, her cheeks were ruddy, and the smile she gave left him giddy inside.

But the silence ended all too quickly, and slowly, Harry got to his feet. He drew his blade, and the smile faded from his companion's lips, a grimace of resigned acceptance forming instead. He stalked toward her, moving past without a word. He continued, unerring, to the rumpled mass of robes fallen by the ridge's edge, and turned the man over. There, he crouched stared into unseeing crystalline eyes.

"He's dead," Harry called out curtly.

Hermione's grimace deepened. "Witcher—Harry—you _must_ believe me when I say I didn't intend for this to happen."

"Everyone here that's died, even this miserable wretch, they all have you to blame for their deaths. That's how it looks to me," Harry said. "So, what did you _intend_ to happen, then?"

The brunette made to speak, and then paused, as if to gather her thoughts. "There was only ever one reason for this farce," she said, at length, "and you just saw it."

"To capture a djinn, only to tell it to leave?"

"Yes."

"That's your reason."

"Yes."

"I've had to kill a lot of men these past few days. And I don't make it practice to kill men. _That_ doesn't strike me as a reason good enough for what's happened here."

"It's not," Hermione shrugged. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this. Lockhart was supposed to take the djinn with his accomplice, and take it somewhere safe until I could take it off their hands. No murder, just a heist. In return, they'd both get one wish and leave the last for me. Lockhart wasn't a smart man, but given some of the things I'd discovered about his past, I surmised he could be quite the clever thief. It seems I was wrong. Then, they tried to cut me out and offered my wish to the chancellor at Oxenfurt, and fled in a panic when the djinn murdered him."

"And when they wished for their gold, the djinn left it in this valley."

"And many died, simply because they couldn't hold to our agreement."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Is that you absolving yourself?"

"No," Hermione answered, "I'll carry the guilt of this place. But this was a preventative measure, a necessary one. One to ensure that a rogue djinn cannot be used against us."

"Against whom? Mages?"

"Against The Continent, and everyone in it from Lan Exeter to Nilfgaard," Hermione said, to Harry's consternation. "You're a witcher," she said, by way of explaining, "you've told me yourself that you have no interest in the affairs of kings, and perhaps even less of mages, so I'm not surprised you don't know."

"Know what?"

The sorceress sighed, and raked a hand through her hair. "There's a man. A sorcerer. He was very powerful once, and threatened to control the whole world from the shadows. He was defeated, at great cost, but we're not sure if he really died."

"Did this sorcerer have a name?"

"He did, once. No one remembers it; I don't even know if Dumbledore does. I remember knowing the name, I remember saying it. But now, I can't recall what it was. It's very powerful magic," Hermione paused. "And there have been... disturbing rumours of late: rumours of wandering hermits, and horrors in the woods, and monsters multiplying, and the old blood."

"You're not making any sense," Harry said, shaking his head.

"It doesn't make much sense to me, either. What I do know is that he's out there, half-human, half-creature, and mostly powerless. But a djinn, a djinn can grant great and terrible power back to him, and any free djinn must either be sent away, or destroyed."

"The djinn was safe, under the supervision of your man, Dumbledore," Harry countered, and Hermione snorted in derision:

"Hardly. It didn't even take a minute's convincing from Lockhart for Fudge to betray Dumbledore. Dumbledore is a powerful wizard, and a good man, but he trusts the wrong people consistently."

"On that," Harry said pointedly as he stood up from his squat, "we agree."

Hermione's expression told him that she'd caught the double meaning to his words, but it very quickly hardened. "I don't care much for being judged as a murderer, by a murderer," she said. "Men did die. Maybe some of them weren't very good men, but they were men. And I'll remember that for as long as I live. But if _these_ dead men ensure that _that man_ never returns, I'll sleep quite easily at night."

She was convinced of her justice. Her eyes dared him to disagree. And, like hers, Harry's mind was now made up.

He returned his sword to its scabbard.

"So, am I to take that as proof that you won't attack me?"

"What would be the point?" Harry asked sharply. "Everyone here is already dead. It'd be a waste of effort. All it would be, is a question of price: there isn't a soul to pay me for it, and unguarded treasure a mile away. I'd rather that than take my chances with you."

"Oh, so that's what it was about, then? The money?" A philosophical little smile made its way to Hermione's lips, and she moved closer to him.

"Isn't it always?"

"And you'll go back to wandering the countryside for loose crowns?" Another step forward.

"It suited me just fine before you came along."

"You're a bad liar, Harry," she said softly, once she was within touching distance.

Her hand wrapped around his. It was warm and lovely.

Harry exhaled through his nose. "And I suppose you'll do better when you see Dumbledore?"

"Lying is one of the few things I'm good at, Master Witcher," Hermione said, and the absurdity of it made them both laugh. "You should come with me, Harry. Even if you don't trust me, the djinn did something to us. Regardless of what happened here, we need to find a way to reverse it."

"You could have reversed it. When you captured the djinn. But you didn't."

"It was a dangerous situation. I didn't know how much I could get away with."

Slowly, he pulled his hand away from hers, and walked toward the ridge that led back down into the valley below.

"There are more djinn to be found," said Hermione distantly, and Harry did his best to pay her no mind. Leaving her with this would be his small betrayal, after all of her many betrayals.

Suddenly, there was a curtain of sound, and the sorceress's voice was fainter than ever. "So be it. If you ever change your mind, you should seek the counsel of _Aen Saevherne_. Ask her about the Old Blood, and she will show you the way."

Harry didn't reply, but kept walking forward. At the precipice right before the path narrowed, he turned around, but the sorceress was already gone and he was left with nothing but golden silence. _Aen Saevherne_ , she had said. Harry gave it a moment's thought, and then shook his head.

He'd had enough of sorceresses and their ilk for a lifetime.

* * *

Epilogue

* * *

Dusk came, and the rain fled.

Harry stood over the unconscious man. Two fingers reached down and pressed into the side of his throat, just under the jaw. _Still alive_ , thought Harry, with some relief. His attention turned to the other three.

The first down had lost his head. A good strike, clean and painless. The aforementioned head laid five feet away; Harry recognised the face but nothing else. Not much further away was the jolly old baron, his eyes open and glassy. Harry clucked his tongue. Maybe, had Hermione not sent the djinn away, Harry might have ended up being the one to kill him. Regardless, on some level, he had felt kinship with the man, and was bitterly disappointed to see the state of him.

The sound of ragged breath disturbed Harry's silent vigil, and the witcher's eyes turned upon the last of the group, a brown haired man sat against a tree trunk, with a Zerrikanean sabre in his hand and an Ofieri kilij embedded deep in his gut.

"Master Dorcan," said Harry, folding his arms once he stood under the long shadows of the tree.

Dorcan smiled weakly. "Ah, yes, of course you'd survive. What rotten luck."

Harry shrugged. "You should be glad I came along: that's a cruel wound you have. Through the liver, this far from civilisation, it's a very slow death."

"It was the fucking Redanian of course. I kill him quick, but he gets this fucking thing in me and I've been sitting here for the better part of an hour now." He wheezed and spat out blood. "Where's a mage when you need one?"

"He's dead. She's had the sense to flee."

"Ha. Mages are always around to ask you for help, but never there when you need it."

"Too true."

"Do us a favour then, Witcher," Dorcan said, and Harry raised an eyebrow in interest. "Make it quick."

Harry made it quick. A good strike, clean and painless. And then, he took his sword back.

He made his way back to Viktor, still alive and still unconscious. Cursing his lot in life, Harry hefted the man up onto his shoulders, and struggled through the forest with the dead weight on his back. Eventually, he made it back to the cave where he and the Baron had stayed the night before. Harry dropped Viktor onto a pile of Novigradian crowns, which scattered in every direction. Most of which Harry picked up, and dropped in his coin pouch.

He set about stitching and bandaging a wound on the sellsword's torso with a kit he carried in a pouch on the strap of his scabbard and strips of fabric from the finery scattered about the cave, and worked tirelessly for the better part of an hour. When the hour passed, and the work was down, the crushing wall of weariness hit him. Exhausted, the witcher limped away from his charge and sat on a throne that was more stylistic than functional. Sleep came for him in an instant.

Hours later, he woke surrounded by black smoke, and the soft giggling of a young girl. He stared at the wisp, dumbly, for a moment, and then a grin ate at his face. Reaching into the pouch on the strap of his scabbard, Harry pulled out a small, stoppered bottle.

"How would you like to see the world with us, Sylvie?"

The decision wasn't hard, even for a child.

Somewhat renewed, Harry emerged from the cave while dawn was a long way off, and found himself surprised by the large form of Sleipnir, the horse he had bought with Hermione some weeks earlier. Next to him stood another horse, who whickered softly. Both of them were tied to a tree, and Harry had no illusions as to who was behind this. Patting the beast's long snout, he walked to its side, and in one swift motion, pulled up onto his back, where the saddle had already been fixed, ready and waiting.

There was much to recover in the wreckage of the Kaedweni camp: his armor, his silver sword, his potions and bombs. He only found the armor and swords, stashed away in Dorcan's tent, along with a few rations for the road. Still, Harry counted himself lucky, witcher's armor and weapons cost a fortune, and though the kaftan was torn and the silver sword might need sharpening, now he'd no longer have to spend his minor newfound wealth on replacements.

Satisfied with the haul, Harry returned to the cave, and found Viktor awake and sitting.

"Are you well enough to ride a horse?" Harry asked bluntly.

"I should think so," Viktor said slowly, as he moved his arms and flexed his muscles. "Vere is she?"

"Gone," Harry replied, and the burly man smiled humourlessly. "Mages are different, you know. Simple sellswords like us don't leave much of an impression, I'm afraid."

"Ve're not alike," Viktor snapped, but there was little venom in it.

"Sure we aren't," Harry said. He reached into a pack on Slepinir's saddle and pulled out some food he'd pilfered from Dorcan's tent: a loaf of crusty bread and cheese. He gave them to Viktor, along with a full canteen of water. "You'll eat, and then we'll ride."

Viktor looked at the rations with annoyance, and then, perhaps realising beggars couldn't be choosers, he ate ravenously. "Ride vere?" he asked, mouth full.

"I intend to go to the nearest port and sail for Lan Exeter. I imagine that'll be far enough from the business of mages for now. Once we get out of the mountains, you're free to go wherever you wish."

The sellsword took a long drink of the canteen, and then sighed when he swallowed it down. He stood, and picked up his scarred armor, laid in neat pile near the gold he'd used as a bed.

"Okay," he said. "Let's go."

* * *

 **A/N** : Sorry for being _super_ late, but you know how it goes.

Chapter Notes:

\- I struggled _forever_ (months, actually) on how to properly write this chapter, particularly where it came to Hermione. I wanted to strike a balance between between writing her as sympathetic person who wants to do the right thing, and contrast it against the her "ends justify the means" philosophy. I'm still not sure if I succeeded. Some might see this as a departure from her character in the original series and instead more parallelism with Yennefer's greyer morality, but I also think this is a fair evolution of Hermione in a world much more brutal than ours, and without the influences of Harry and Ron in her youth. Honestly, all three characters are in a way deficient compared to their canon counterparts—mainly because they weren't around to change each other for the better.

\- To showcase what a problem this chapter was to write, I had to entirely rewrite the ending of this chapter. It originally ended with Hermione convincing Harry to come with her to reverse the djinn's curse, and the epilogue would have put them in Novigrad. But, Harry agreeing to that felt wildly out of character as I got further and further into the chapter. And eventually I decided that while his disgust and attraction toward Hermione sort of warred with each other, the disgust won out, and he put up the "greedy witcher" facade to hide that he had no desire to pile more misery atop an already miserable situation. Killing Dorcan was a mercy, but fighting Hermione solves nothing and helps no one.

All in all, I think this arc might have suffered from a fair bit of scope creep. It was originally only intended to be slightly longer than The Lesser Kindness, but I definitely might have bit off more than I could chew by widening the scope of the arc so early into the story. Next arc will almost certainly be something shorter and simpler, much closer to The Lesser Kindness than The Last Wish.

Thanks for reading guys, the next interlude with Harry, Geralt, and Dandelion should be out fairly soon,

Geist.


	14. The Last Enemy, Part 2

**WARNING:** This fic was updated a few hours ago with a chapter that you might have missed; if you haven't yet finished all parts of "The Last Wish", click back a chapter and do so.

 **Summary** : SEVENTY-FIVE DUCATS, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? GERALT, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

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 **THE LAST ENEMY**

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II

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1251, September  
Three Day's Ride From Lyria

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Dandelion growled, or made a noise he thought sounded like a growl. It was a closer to a cat being strangled, to Geralt's ears.

"Seventy-five ducats, split between the both of you!?" he was incredulous, spitting mad, and throwing a child's tantrum in the modest shack they'd been given for the night. It would have been a funny sight if Geralt wasn't just as angry himself. Nevertheless, he nodded. The truth was the truth, and two witchers were being paid 75 ducats for the head of a griffin.

Next to Geralt, Harry shrugged, and ran a hand through his greying hair. "It's a backwater. Did you expect them to be flush with gold?"

"I didn't expect them to offer seventy-five ducats for _a griffin!_ Insulting!" Dandelion huffed, and shook his head. "Never mind these skinflints, we'll shake the the dust of this miserable fucking village off our feet and find _proper_ pay for _proper_ work in Lyria!"

"Unlikely," said Geralt. "If a major city like Lyria had beast trouble we would've heard of it by now."

Dandelion clucked his tongue. "At the very least, I might be able to scrounge some work in Lyria, and I know it'll pay a damn sight well more than _seventy-five ducats_!"

"Yes, Dandelion, the contract was for seventy-five ducats, you don't need to keep telling me," Geralt sniped.

"And I hate to admit it, but we're just as poor as these 'skinflints' here at the moment," said Harry, reminding all three that their current finances sat at an amount equivalent to twenty-two ducats total. "The pay for this is terrible when considering the danger involved, but we need money to get to Lyria before you can dream up playing for nobles, and seventy-five will do that much, at least."

Dandelion, somewhat moved by elder witcher's logic, sat down on his bed, which was more a sack over a few bales of hay than a proper bed. "If you're willing to die for such a paltry sum, then so be it. When do you start?"

"Tomorrow morning," said Geralt. "We've been riding all day, and I don't think I can flog Roach any further than this tonight."

Dandelion nodded. "Good. Well, then. For the night, we'll entertain each other with stories. _Good ones_ , this time," he said with a pointed look at the Bear School Witcher.

"Are you never going to shut up about that?"

"Why would I? It was a terrible story. Everyone in it but you and that Baron was a bastard, nearly everyone died, and you didn't even get the girl, who, by the by, was no Saint Lebioda herself. How am I supposed to sell a story like that to _anyone_? It's awful!"

"It's what happened."

" _What happened_ ," Dandelion mocked in a way that Geralt knew he reserved only for close friends, "audiences don't care for the truth! They don't care for _realism_. The world is an awfully bleak place for most people, and they want an adventure! They want a romp! A swashbuckling adventure where the hero saves the day and ploughs the girl to their happily-ever-after!"

"If you want comedies, you shouldn't be writing about the lives of witchers. We're not exactly a popular subject, anyways," said Geralt, logically.

"But don't you see, that's why I need witchers for my ballads," replied Dandelion conversationally. "There's nothing original about brave knights and crafty mages. People love them and they're bloody _boring_. Witchers, on the other hand... no one has sympathy or love for you lot." Harry raised an eyebrow, and Geralt rolled his eyes. "What? Am I wrong? Because I don't exactly see people throwing parades for you when you come to town the way they do for sorcerers."

Geralt had to admit that was true, and evidently, his comrade-in-arms agreed, if the slight nod of the head was anything to go by.

"See? Even you two admit it," Dandelion smiled brilliantly. "So, think, if I could write a stories about witchers that would make a Skelliger cry and a Nilfgaardian laugh, then I am, undoubtedly, the greatest bard to ever walk these lands."

"Uh-huh," Geralt said, clearly interested.

"I'm sure you would be," agreed Harry, equally as sincere as the other witcher.

"But there's one thing I would need before that. And that is a story that is worth telling. So far, you've provided me with none. Well, except for that one Geralt told me about the man-bear. Now _that's_ a story."

Geralt squinted. "No, by your logic it should be terrible."

"Huh? Why's that?"

"Nearly everyone in it was a bad person, and the girl died."

"But it was _romantic_ , and you can never deny the effect that an honest romance can have on the punch of a tale. Three things a great tale makes: adventure, romance, and a moral. It has all of those."

Harry looked amused. "So what would you like then, Dandelion? An adventure, a romance, or a story with a good moral?"

"Preferably one with all three, but if I had to choose one, an adventure. Morals are for the people who read my ballads, not myself, and I'd rather not talk romance in the company of two men, if it pleases you."

"How about a story of Skellige? It has pirates, and nymphs, and murder, and intrigue. As swashbuckling as can be," said Harry.

Dandelion looked disinterested, but Geralt could tell otherwise. "I'll be the judge of that. Go ahead, tell me the story."

Harry smiled, and reclined. In a moment, it seemed as though he'd retreated into his own world, and the older witcher's eyes brightened with the prospect of a story to tell. For all their bickering, Geralt thought, Harry and Dandelion did not differ greatly from each other. The Bear paused for a short moment, the words half-formed in his mouth, deciding how best to start his story.

Then he spoke, and they listened for a long while.

* * *

A/N: So, I guess by 'out soon', I meant in a couple of hours. The next arc, "Hail, King That Shalt Be" will take a bit longer than this to start, however. Aen Saevherne, the arc that was originally supposed to be next, has been pushed back because I think we need a slight breather arc from the big boys, and Aen Saevherne is definitely going to be one of them.


End file.
